Tutu 'saddened' by Obama's decision to cut HIV/AIDS spending

By Matthew Davies, July 21, 2010 [Episcopal News Service] Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town Desmond Tutu has called it "deeply distressing" that President Barack Obama has decided "to spend less than he promised to treat AIDS patients in Africa."

Tutu, writing in the New York Times on July 20, said he is "saddened" that Obama has chosen to cut U.S. contributions to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, an international financing institution that has committed $19.3 billion in 144 countries to support large-scale prevention, treatment and care programs against the three diseases.

Tutu described the fund as "the premier model for results-driven aid."

Obama should "reconsider his commitment to fighting the disease," Tutu said. "Surely the richest country on the planet can find the means to fight this scourge."

Tutu's article comes as world leaders and health practitioners are meeting for the 18th International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria, July 18-23. Former President Bill Clinton, addressing the conference on July 19, called for funds for fighting AIDS to be used more efficiently; to directly target sufferers rather than paying for "too many people to go to too many meetings, get on too many airplanes."

Tutu, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate and honorary chair of the Global AIDS Alliance, said in his Times article that former President George W. Bush had "made an impressive commitment to the international fight against AIDS" through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief program which, since 2004, has spent $19 billion to help distribute anti-viral treatments to about 2.5 million Africans infected with HIV.

"Thanks to these efforts -- and similar initiatives, like those spearheaded by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria -- the number of African patients with access to AIDS drugs jumped tenfold from 2003 to 2008. Since 2004, the AIDS-related mortality rate in sub-Saharan Africa has dropped 18 percent," Tutu said.

But Obama has added $366 million to the Pepfar program in 2010, "well below the $1 billion per year he promised to add when he was on the campaign trail," Tutu said. "President Obama's Pepfar strategy would reduce the number of new patients receiving treatment to 320,000 -- resulting in 1.2 million avoidable deaths over the next five years … Doctors would have to decide which of the 22 million Africans afflicted with HIV should receive treatment and which should not."

According to the World Health Organization's December 2008 statistics, there are 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS, 67 percent of whom live in sub-Saharan Africa.

"During my life, I've witnessed amazing advances in medical science. New treatments turn HIV infection from a death sentence to a manageable illness. The cost of treating it is a small fraction of what it was 10 years ago. Meanwhile, more and more African nations have invested in the public health infrastructure needed to distribute AIDS drugs," said Tutu.

"I appreciate that tough financial times require the United States government to cut spending. But scaling back America's financial commitments to AIDS programs could wipe away decades of progress in Africa."

-- Matthew Davies is editor and international correspondent of the Episcopal News Service.