Need "Bold" U.S. Leadership to Move Global AIDS Fight Forward

"Progress on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care is plateauing as the newly reauthorized President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is flat-funded and as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria begins to ration resources, with its coffers running low," according to a Boston Globe opinion piece by Brook Baker, co-chairman of the Health GAP board and Donna Barry, Partners In Health's advocacy and policy director.

"Africans are learning about their HIV status at an unprecedented rate. ... Just when testing trends are so positive, when the costs of medicines have plummeted to historic lows, and when science shows that treatment reduces the risk of HIV transmission, funding is being capped both by donor countries and their developing country partners," they write before describing the difficult choices people face because of limited funding for antiretrovirals. They highlight world leaders' commitments from the last 10 years at the U.N. and G8 meetings, noting that the "promises have not been met." According to Baker and Barry, "What we need now is bold leadership and fulfilled promises from Washington to increase AIDS funding and continue saving lives, not longer lines filled with despair" (12/7).

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