WASHINGTON, DC (July 31, 2008) - President Bush signed the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, TB, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 yesterday, authorizing $48 billion in new global health funding for AIDS, TB and malaria over the next five years. CARE USA, one of the world's largest development and humanitarian relief agencies, released the following statement in response to the bill signing:
"We're encouraged by the broad, bipartisan commitment to fully fund and maintain U.S. leadership in the fight against global AIDS, TB and malaria, but there's still more work to do to strengthen comprehensive, evidence-based HIV/AIDS prevention programming under PEPFAR.
"The new legislation improves key aspects of current law, including provisions that reinforce the need to address gender and the status of women; enhance linkages between HIV/AIDS and food security and other development programming; expand support for pediatric AIDS initiatives and orphans and vulnerable children programming; and establish new flexibility to address the HIV travel ban.
"But the President can make the bill even stronger by implementing its new provisions so that we prioritize prevention. The success of treatment programming under PEPFAR has been and will continue to be a critical dimension of the AIDS response, but treatment alone cannot reverse the global AIDS epidemic; it must be coupled with significantly increased commitment to scaling up prevention.
"CARE also noted the persistent need to focus on gender and empowerment of women as a strategy for reducing HIV risk and the impact of AIDS on vulnerable people; and the tough but important job of fully integrating – and funding – our HIV programming with other U.S. and international health and development assistance.
"Despite its strengths, the new law also misses key opportunities, and CARE identified several priority areas where lawmakers and administrators still have work to do:
- Ensuring effective program integration with other basic health and development services, including comprehensive information about reducing risk of HIV transmission, and addressing women's unmet need for family planning;
- Promoting well-grounded approaches to prevention that avoid rigid or artificial categories or restrictions. ABC (abstinence, be-faithful and condoms) should reflect an evidence-based continuum of support for individuals at risk of HIV infection. Depending on how it's applied, the new reporting requirement may reduce the coordinator's flexibility to fully program on the basis of ‘know your epidemic'; and
- Remembering that high-risk populations are highly vulnerable and difficult to reach under the best circumstances. The prostitution 'pledge' unnecessarily burdens cooperating agencies' freedom of speech and thought and risks driving a wedge between CARE and the people we most need to reach. Lawmakers should repeal this controversial provision.
"CARE looks forward to working with the PEPFAR program under the newly reauthorized law. But it is essential that we strengthen and prioritize prevention and more comprehensive, integrated approaches in order to build on and advance the important progress that the program has already achieved."
