Blog: Uganda Health Minister's Letter to Clinton; Finding 140,000 New Health Workers for PEPFAR

"In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Dr. Stephen Mallinga [Uganda's health minister] says any weakening in U.S. support or funding for PEPFAR and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria would be a significant setback for Uganda and other countries, and indeed could strain partnerships with key African allies," according to the Infectious Diseases Center for Global Health Policy's "Science Speaks" blog. "No word yet about a response from Clinton or from Dr. Eric Goosby, the Obama Administration's global AIDS coordinator, who was copied on the missive," the blogs writes (10/13).

In a separate post, the blog reports on a recent discussion at the Global Health Council about the question of how to recruit and retain "140,000 new health care workers over the next five years in countries hard hit by the AIDS epidemic." The target is part of a provision that lawmakers included when they reauthorized PEPFAR. According to the blog, "turning that promise into a reality is a tall order, given the severity of current workforce shortages, the time, effort and expense involved in training new doctors and nurses, and the brain drain of health care professionals from resource poor countries to more affluent ones" (10/8).

Back to other news for October 2009