“The virus is running faster than all of us.”
These words from Dr. Peter Piot, leader of the United Nations’ AIDS program, come on the heels of last week’s U.N. report on AIDS and accurately sum up its message.
AIDS has gone global, and is infecting 5 million people every year while killing another 3 million. Eastern Europe and Asia have become fertile ground for HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and sub-Saharan Africa continues to be the region with the highest percentage of infections per person. More than 38 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with the virus, and women and men are becoming infected at an equal rate.
The state of the fight against AIDS may be even more depressing than the state of the disease. While funding has gone up in recent years, the report said that only half of the $12.5 billion needed was raised last year. Health-care workers are available to just one of every five people at risk of contracting HIV. Only 7 percent of those who need AIDS medication are receiving it, and governments around the world continue to drag their feet in the face of this global catastrophe.
The United States must lead the struggle to find a cure and to prevent the spread of AIDS. In 2002, President Bush promised $3 billion a year for five years to fight AIDS on multiple fronts, but what has been delivered amounts to no more than $350 million. The development of generic and less expensive drugs continues to be blocked in the U.N. by the United States to protect intellectual property, and while the global gag rule isn’t as strong as it was under the Reagan administration, one-third of U.S. funding for prevention is still contingent on abstinence-only education.
There isn’t time for this type of “go-slow” approach to the AIDS crisis. The world needs immediate and comprehensive action.
It’s time to stop playing politics with AIDS funding. The world must meet funding requests to fight AIDS, and the United States should lead that charge by devoting itself more seriously to the fight, even if it means embracing reality and endorsing condom use. Abstinence is a desirable goal, but abstinence-only policies aren’t realistic. If the United States commits itself to devoting large sums of money to the Global AIDS Fund, other wealthy nations will follow suit.
Only by making AIDS a top priority can the world hope to catch up to the virus before millions more die.
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