AIDS: The Crisis Left Behind

Donations to the new Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria from June to Sept. 11 amounted to $1.5 billion. But the amount donated from Sept. 11 to today is just $2,000. For many leaders in Africa, this pause in global action against AIDS, TB, and malaria is maddening. Malawi Vice President Justin Malewezi opened a meeting on the fund in Lilongwe, Malawi, last Tuesday with a plea for immediate action. "The delay in addressing HIV/AIDS is as incomprehensible as it is immoral," Malewezi said. "It is scandalous," he continued, "because we have the knowledge, the technology, and the resources to address the challenges posed by HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, but we have not yet mobilized sufficient political will."

The dream for a sustained battle against AIDS and other infectious diseases, articulated by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last April in Nigeria, is bogged down in bureaucratic entanglements and donors' conflicting wishes. It appears as if the fund's first grants won't be allocated until spring, more than a year after Annan's announcement, several people close to the process say. At the beginning of August, Annan named former Ugandan Health Minister Chrispus Kiyonga to oversee the formation of a secretariat and board for the new fund. So far, a board of advisors has decided on little but a name for the fund and the general principle that the money could go to treatment and prevention.

Facing a deadline to begin operations by the first of the year, the board of advisors, which will hold a private meeting beginning Thursday in Brussels, must quickly address many contentious issues regarding the fund.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) recently said of HIV's worldwide toll, "Suppose we woke up tomorrow morning and learned that every single man, woman and child, every single person, in Miami, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, San Diego, Detroit, and Dallas, combined, were infected with a virus for which there was no cure. Don't you think that we would respond as rapidly and with the kind of finances as we did after Sept. 11th?"

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