Bush aims to double US funds to fight global AIDS

Washington, May 31: President George W Bush asked the US Congress to double the US financial commitment to combat AIDS globally, particularly in hard-hit Africa, to 30 billion dollars over five years starting next year.

Bush also said first lady Laura Bush will travel to four countries in Africa next month to see AIDS programs at work.

His wife will go to Zambia, Senegal, Mali and Mozambique from June 25 to 29, the White House said.

AIDS activists have praised the programme for getting life-extending drugs to people who otherwise would go without them but have criticized its prevention measures for focusing too heavily on encouraging sexual abstinence.

The programme is focused on 15 countries 12 in Africa, plus Vietnam, Haiti and Guyana.

Bush in 2003 launched a five-year, 15 billion dollars initiative called the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, to provide drugs to treat people infected with the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS and support prevention efforts.

That commitment is due to end in September 2008. Bush's proposal would extend it for five more years with 30 billion dollars in new funds. Bush's presidency ends in January 2009.

''This level of assistance is unprecedented and the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in human history,'' Bush said in the White House Rose Garden. ''This investment has yielded the best possible return: It saved lives.'' AIDS is an incurable disease that ravages the body's immune system.

More than 25 million people have died of AIDS since it was first recognised more than a quarter century ago. About 40 million people now live with HIV, most in sub-Saharan Africa where the virus is spread primarily through heterosexual sex.

'Death Sentence'

''When I took office (in 2001), an HIV diagnosis in Africa's poorest communities was usually a death sentence. Parents watched their babies die needlessly because local clinics lacked effective treatments,'' Bush said yesterday.

''Despairing families who had lost everything to AIDS started to believe that they had been cursed by the Almighty God,'' Bush added.

PEPFAR to date has supported drug treatment for 1.1 million HIV-infected people.

Bush said the 5-year extension would be aimed at getting drugs to nearly 2.5 million people, preventing more than 12 million new infections and supporting care for 12 million people.

Bush's announcement, coming ahead of next week's meeting in Germany of international leaders at a Group of Eight meeting, earned praise from advocacy groups and activists.

''It was only 5 years ago that people mocked the idea of fighting AIDS in Africa. They said it couldn't be done, but President Bush and the Congress have proven them wrong,'' Bono, the Irish rock star and activist against poverty and disease, said in a statement.

Bono said he viewed Bush's announcement as a challenge to other G8 countries ''to step up, too,'' in the global fight against AIDS.

Paul Zeitz, executive director of the advocacy group Global AIDS Alliance, said Bush's announcement reaffirms US support to the global fight against AIDS. ''We hope that it will leverage other wealthy governments in Europe, like Germany and France and the UK, to match the US contribution.'' ''PEPFAR is one of the few foreign policy initiatives where the president has broad bipartisan support among the Congress,'' said California Democratic Representative Barbara Lee, although she faulted the abstinence education elements.

Reuters>