Press Statement
www.globaltreatmentaccess.org | www.healthgap.org

Bush Administration fights necessary funding to enact, while Global AIDS Fund faces immediate insolvency.

Today, the world's leading AIDS activists welcomed the new WHO Director's outline of a "road map" to place three million people with HIV into antiretroviral treatment in developing countries by 2005. While the plan brings new hope to nations facing extermination by the AIDS pandemic, activists continue to warn that this "3 by 5" plan is still dependent on ramping up US funding of the fight against global AIDS.

"This is a watershed moment in the fight against AIDS. It is exhilarating to witness the fire that the new Director has brought to the WHO," stated Health GAP's Asia Russell at an international conference of people with AIDS in Nairobi. "However, this overdue initiative will be nothing but a cruel hoax so long as rich countries continue to refuse to fully fund the fight against AIDS."

The WHO's announcement came on the day of the first official assessment of progress in attaining the goals to which the UN Members committed two years ago in the UNGASS Declaration of Commitment On HIV/AIDS. However, progress towards meeting the clinical and financial goals agreed to in the Declaration have been slowed by the reluctance of wealthy nations to commit the necessary funds.

Health GAP applauded WHO Director J.W. Lee's new call for an immediate doubling of donor contributions, as well as the WHO's push to provide "emergency response teams" that will dramatically scale up accredited health worker training programs, and provide assistance with strengthening procurement and supply chain management systems to purchase affordable generic medications.

Experts from UNAIDS and the Commission on Macroeconomics and Health have estimated the cost to donors to reverse the epidemic as it destabilizes growing portions of the globe. However, current costing estimates underestimate need, as they do not take into account the cost of building up and expanding infrastructure or addressing the crisis resulting from Africa's 15 million AIDS orphans. The WHO expects to release complete costing estimates that incorporate infrastructure costs by World AIDS Day 2003.

At 34.5% of the world's economy, the United States should pay at least one third of the cost. The cost estimates are expected to exceed current pledges of spending by at least 100%.

"Under even wildly optimistic estimates, current activities worldwide will only get 800,000 people with HIV on treatment by 2005. With six million patients in clinical need, the WHO has now created a plan for to address the greatest plague in human history," states Health GAP's Paul Davis, who is following the U.S. Presidential Campaign trail in Iowa.

̉President Bush's recent shameful fight against funding for the Global Fund is the action of an immoral scoundrel who is turning away in the face of a holocaust." Continued Davis. "While other presidential candidates on the are embracing the $30 billion needed to fight global AIDS, President Bush worked hard this month to underfund his own half-step of an AIDS program. "

Presidential Candidates Dean and Gephardt have already committed to doubling the White House contributions towards global AIDS to at least $30 billion by 2008.

Although passed by US Congress with much fanfare and touted by President Bush during this year's G8 Summit, funding for the US Leadership Against HIV/AIDS Act is being blocked by the White House. The bill was to have spent $3 billion on global AIDS programs by 2004. This includes a $1 billion committed to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, in the form of a challenge grant to other donor countries. However, the Administration is supporting only $2 billion in funding, with $200 million for the Global Fund -- a one-third reduction from the 2003 US contribution of $350 million.

While the Global AIDS Fund was also announced with much fanfare by President Bush and touted at the Genoa G8 Summit, the Fund is facing immediate insolvency, with inadequate new contributions to cover applications for 2003 and beyond.