On Tuesday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee passed a five-year, $50 billion measure reauthorizing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Leaders in both parties and the White House support the bill, which more than triples PEPFAR's original $15 billion budget in 2003.
The reauthorization would not require one-third of all prevention funding to be spent on abstinence. Instead, it calls for PEPFAR's chief to ensure "balanced funding" and that abstinence and monogamy programs "are implemented in a meaningful and equitable way." PEPFAR would need to provide justification to Congress if a country spent less than 50 percent of sexually transmitted HIV prevention funding to promote abstinence and monogamy.
A requirement that PEPFAR recipients adopt a policy against "prostitution and human trafficking" remains in the bill. Family planning groups would be eligible for PEPFAR funds - so long as they were not used for birth control or abortion.
Under the measure, PEPFAR's objectives would expand to include about $9 billion to fight TB and malaria, which often co-infect people with AIDS in Africa. The program would also support food supplementation for AIDS patients and microcredit loans for women widowed by AIDS or rejected for having the disease.
By 2013, PEPFAR is expected to prevent 12 million new HIV infections; provide antiretroviral treatment for 3 million people; provide medical and non-medical care for 12 million people; and help train at least 140,000 new health care workers.
The measure will likely reach the full House floor within two weeks. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is working on its own bipartisan PEPFAR proposal, said a senior aide who requested anonymity because he is not an official spokesperson.
02/28/08
GLOBAL: Pact Would Give Global AIDS Fight Triple the Money
Source: Washington Post:: David Brown; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention