It has also angered some of Bush's conservative allies who say it doesn't go far enough in making abstinence, rather than condoms, a priority in the fight against the deadly virus.

Congressional aides say Bush is expected to support the House bill, the work of International Relations Committee Chairman Henry Hyde, R-Ill.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer on Friday said the administration was pleased that the House was moving quickly on the bill, adding, "we want to make sure that the president has the flexibility and the authority to implement the program the way it was outlined."

Kate Carr, president of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and a supporter of the Hyde bill, said Tuesday would be significant for the tens of millions of people worldwide suffering from HIV and AIDS. That Bush was putting aside his focus on the war in Iraq and his tax cut plan to talk about AIDS "sends a very important signal, and we hope Congress gets the message."

The legislation, which would authorize $3 billion a year over the next five years to combat AIDS as well as tuberculosis and malaria, has wide support and is expected to pass easily. Still unsure is the fate of several amendments conservatives are expected to offer that would emphasize the importance of abstinence programs and strengthen provisions already in the bill protecting religious groups that oppose condom distribution.

Several Republicans joined Democrats to narrowly defeat similar amendments when the International Relations Committee approved the Hyde bill earlier this month. Hyde, a conservative with strong anti-abortion credentials, has tried to win bipartisan support for the bill by avoiding some of the more controversial social issues that have complicated other foreign aid legislation.

White House officials say the president would support amendments to emphasize abstinence and strengthen religious exemptions, but that his main focus was getting legislation consistent with what he has outlined.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee hopes to take up its version of the bill by mid-May, depending on the outcome of the House vote on Thursday, Andy Fisher, spokesman for committee chairman Dick Lugar, R-Ind., said.

Shepherd Smith of the Children's AIDS Fund said he hoped some changes can be made as the legislation moves through Congress. "The bill can be enhanced to give confidence to the faith-based community overseas ... that they can promote messages that are culturally relevant to their populations," he said.

Fleischer on Friday pointed to the Ugandan model, also endorsed in the Hyde bill, as the "key" to a successful approach to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. That "ABC" approach stresses behavioral change with "A" for abstinence, "B" for be faithful and "C" for using condoms when appropriate.

The House bill also allows for up to $1 billion of the $3 billion in 2004 to go to the public-private Global Fund to Combat AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The White House, reflecting concerns about the efficiency and management practices of the international fund, has proposed $200 million a year over the five years.

By JIM ABRAMS, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - The House on Thursday passed a $15 billion bill that would more than double U.S. contributions to the worldwide fight against AIDS.

Supporters, led by President Bush, said the money could bring relief to millions of people with AIDS and prevent the deadly disease from infecting millions more.

"It sends a message to the world that the United States will not sit idly by and allow AIDS to wreak havoc on the human family," said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.

The House passed the legislation by a 375-41 vote after lawmakers approved an amendment assuring that one-third of the money for AIDS prevention would go to sexual abstinence programs.

The president's conservative allies had insisted that abstinence get a prominent role in the AIDS effort.

The five-year spending plan is aimed specifically at sub-Saharan Africa, home to 30 million of the world's 42 million AIDS sufferers, and the Caribbean. The United States this year is spending about $1.2 billion on international AIDS efforts.

"Not since the bubonic plague swept across the world in the last millennium, killing more than 250 million people, has our world confronted such a horrible, unspeakable curse as we are now witnessing with the growing HIV /AIDS pandemic," said Rep. Henry Hyde, chairman of the House International Relations Committee.

"So much of what we do is really unimportant and trivial, but not today," said Hyde, R-Ill., chief sponsor of the measure with Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., has pledged to act quickly on a Senate bill with the goal of getting legislation to the president by the end of the month.

Bush, in his State of the Union address in January, challenged Congress to come up with the significant increase in America's financial contribution to the fight against AIDS.

Within minutes of the vote, Bush issued a statement praising it. The fight against AIDS "is a moral imperative our great nation must confront decisively and boldly," Bush said. "Time is of the essence."

"We are doing probably the greatest thing that we have done since I have been in Congress," said Rep. Donald Payne, an eight-term Democrat from New Jersey.

DATA (Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa), an advocacy group founded by the rock star Bono, said the bill would prevent 7 million new infections, provide care for 10 million HIV-infected individuals and AIDS orphans, and give antiretroviral therapy for 2 million.

But the bill also had its critics. Conservatives demanded stronger language to promote abstinence and monogamy as the best ways to prevent AIDS. They also sought language protecting religious groups that object to the distribution of condoms in their anti-AIDS programs.

The House approved, 220-197, an amendment by Rep. Joe Pitts, R-Pa., requiring that one-third of funds spent on prevention go to abstinence programs. "It's important that we not just send them money, but we send them values that work," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., a supporter of Pitts' proposal.

The legislation recommends that 20 percent of the aid for other countries go to prevention, with 55 percent for treatment programs, 15 percent for palliative care and 10 percent for orphans.

Prevention programs are modeled after the "ABC" approach that has achieved some success in Uganda. The model stresses "A" for abstinence, "B" for being faithful and "C" for condom use when appropriate.

The White House said in a statement that it supported language that would "prioritize the abstinence component of the ABC approach."

Critics contended that the Uganda model was successful because all three approaches were given equal importance. Uganda, while stressing abstinence and monogamy, has also been distributing 80 million condoms a year, Lantos said. "Countless lives will be lost if we fail to learn this lesson," he said.

Kate Carr, president of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, said prevention programs are most effective "when they have the flexibility to match strategies to the specific needs of each community." Requiring that 33 percent go to abstinence was "compromising the effectiveness of the overall effort."

The House approved an amendment by Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., to strengthen protections for religious groups. Smith and others said that Catholic groups, which object to condom distribution, care for one-fourth of AIDS victims worldwide.

The actual spending of money authorized by the bill must still be approved by the Appropriations committees responsible for annual budgets. Appropriators said that Bush asked for only $1.7 billion for global AIDS in his 2004 budget proposal and that it will not be easy to find the rest of the money.

Jim Lobe,OneWorld US

WASHINGTON, Apr 30 (OneWorld) - While welcoming President George W. Bush's endorsement of a pending bill to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean, activist groups said Tuesday that the president will have to push Congress harder to ensure that the five-year US$15 billion dollar package is fully funded.

"We are glad that, after initially obstructing the bill, the president has apparently seen the wisdom of a bolder approach," said Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance. "But the bill exceeds the amount he requested in his own budget proposal for fiscal year 2004. The real test of his commitment will be whether he works hard to persuade the members of the Appropriations Committee to turn these funding levels into a reality."

Bush announced his support for the bill at a White House ceremony Tuesday. It is similar to a proposal he originally requested during his State of the Union address last January, but provides substantially more money for the program next year and to the cash-strapped Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, a multilateral agency set up last year to coordinate and speed up funding for anti-AIDS projects around the world.

"Time is not on our side," Bush declared to an audience that included 13 ambassadors from sub-Saharan Africa, where AIDS has hit hardest, claiming more than 5,000 lives in the region each day. "So I ask Congress to move forward with the speed this crisis requires."

The bill, which is being spearheaded by the chairman of the House of Representatives International Relations Committee, Rep. Henry Hyde, was approved by the committee earlier this month and is scheduled to be voted on by the entire House Thursday.

Some of its provisions, however, have been opposed by anti-abortion forces in the House, who tried unsuccessfully to amend it in Committee. They have argued for strict curbs on the health clinics and non-governmental groups to be funded, to ensure they do not spend it on counseling or performing abortions and that they prioritize abstinence and faithfulness over condom use in their effort to stop the disease's spread.

They have also voiced concern about the Global Fund, which has already provided funding to clinics and other facilities that encourage condom use and even perform abortions.

"The bill, in its present form, would throw taxpayer money at condom handout schemes in Africa," said Ken Conner, director of the conservative Family Research Council (FRC). "By signaling that President Bush will sign the bill 'as is,' the White House probably has made it much more difficult to pass amendments which would focus U.S. efforts on abstinence and monogamy, or which would limit funding to the UN's disastrous Global AIDS Fund and other anti-family organizations."

Despite pressure from the Christian Right, one of his core constituencies, Bush decided to support the Hyde version of the bill. It helped that Hyde, a strong abortion foe, lobbied the president personally on the issue, according to Congressional staffers.

"The president is making it clear that an integrated strategy of prevention, care and treatment is a top foreign policy priority," said Nils Daulaire, president of the Global Health Council, who met with Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell, who also has lobbied hard for more anti-AIDS funds, before the ceremony.

The bill provides $3 billion annually over the next five years, starting in fiscal year 2004, for anti-AIDS programs in 12 African and two Caribbean countries hit especially hard by the crisis. Bush had originally proposed that the package provide only $1.6 billion dollars in 2004 and build up gradually over the period.

The bill would also provide "up to" $1 billion each year to the Global Fund, whose recently elected chairman is U.S. Secretary for Health and Human Services , Tommy Thompson. Bush had originally proposed contributing a total of $1 billion to the Fund over the full five years, in part because of the concerns raised by anti-abortion forces.

Most activists and public health specialists, however, see the Global Fund as critical to the anti-AIDS effort. It is seen as a mechanism for leveraging more resources from donor countries, acting swiftly and with a minimum of bureaucratic review to fund proposals, and for reducing the administrative burden on local clinics and health programs in the world's poorest countries that can ill afford to spend time and resources reporting to multiple donors.

The Fund's management has estimated that it will need at least $7 billion over the next two years just to keep pace with demand. The United States normally provides 25-33 percent of the budgets of multilateral agencies. Activists had feared that if Bush kept Washington's contribution to only $200 million a year, as he originally proposed, the Fund would become a minor player in global efforts to contain the disease.

In that respect, Bush's endorsement of the bill represents a major change of heart. "The Bush administration is finally beginning to grasp the gravity of the AIDS crisis in Africa," said Salih Booker, director of Africa Action, a grassroots network which has called for Washington to contribute at least $2.5 billion to the Fund each year.

But activists are still concerned that passage of the Hyde bill and a similar measure in the Senate will not ensure that the money will indeed be made available. The current bill "authorizes" the money, but for the funds to actually be spent, it must be included in an appropriations bill, which is likely to be taken up later this year.

"Similar (authorization) bills have been ignored in the past, even when approved by the full House," said Zeitz. "We call on the president and House leadership to make sure this bill is not yet another empty promise. The real test of the president's commitment will be whether he works hard to persuade members of the Appropriations Committees to turn these funding levels into a reality."

The same point was echoed by Booker, who also called on the administration to take other measures to enable African governments to spend more money on the anti-AIDS fight.

"Africa's illegitimate debts should be canceled, enabling governments to spend money on health care instead of debt repayments," he said. "And the White House must break with the pharmaceutical industry and support African countries' access to cheaper, generic anti-retroviral drugs."

In addition, Booker said, Bush's own remarks about the urgent nature of the disease and the toll it is taking should justify providing more money in the current fiscal year to the Global Fund and the anti-AIDS fight. "After all, the Bush administration secured $79 billion in a supplemental (appropriation) for war in Iraq."

He cited Powell's interview in this week's edition of U.S. News and World Report in which he said, "The greatest weapon of mass destruction today on the face of the Earth is HIV, and it is a destroyer of people, families, nations, societies, and hopes in the poorest parts of the world, and it is spreading."

"The White House is still failing to match rhetoric with resources," Booker said.

 

Press Release

Source: Population Research Institute

Abstinence Wins Over Condoms in Battle for Effective HIV/AIDS Prevention

Wednesday April 30, 3:32 pm ET

He was quoted in a statement before a planned ministerial consultation on children organised by the UNICEF East Asia and Pacific Office in Bali for May 5-7.

Allen said a UNICEF survey of over 1,000 Indonesian children and young people in 2001 showed that 84 percent "knew only a little or nothing about HIV/ AIDS."

The same survey revealed that 73 percent of those aged 14 to 17 did not know what a condom was, compared to 40 percent in the rest of the region.

The survey also found that 12 percent of those interviewed had experimented with drugs.

The UNICEF meeting is to address other issues including maternal and neonatal mortality.

Maternal mortality in Indonesia is the fourth-highest in the region with about 20,000 Indonesian women dying from pregnancy-related causes every year, Allen said.

Other issues to be discussed at the conference will be malnutrition and the commercial sexual exploitation and trafficking of children.

President Megawati Sukarnoputri is scheduled to give the opening address.

 

Press Release

Source: UNICEF

UNICEF Lauds White House Leadership On AIDS Bill 'Young People Are Our Best Vaccine Against AIDS'

Tuesday April 29, 3:35 pm ET

    HIV prevalence among adults and young people, target countries

                                   % of adults  % of females     % of males
                                    aged 15-59   aged 15-24      aged 15-24
                                       with       living with   living with
                                    HIV/AIDS*       HIV/AIDS*     HIV/AIDS*

    Botswana                           38.8            37.5          16.1
    Ivory Coast                         9.7             8.4           2.9
    Ethiopia                            6.4             7.8           4.4
    Guyana                              2.7             4.0           3.3
    Haiti                               6.1             5.0           4.1
    Kenya                              15.0            15.6           6.0
    Mozambique                         13.0            14.7           6.1
    Namibia                            22.5            24.3          11.1
    Nigeria                             5.8             5.9           3.0
    Rwanda                              8.9            11.2           4.9
    South Africa                       20.1            25.7          10.7
    Tanzania                            7.8             8.1           3.6
    Uganda                              5.0             4.7           2.0
    Zambia                             21.5            21.0           8.1

    * median estimates
    Source: UNICEF, UNAIDS, WHO, 2002. Young People and HIV/AIDS:
    Opportunity in Crisis

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - South African AIDS activists suspended a nationwide civil disobedience campaign on Tuesday ahead of a meeting next month at which they hope the government may agree to provide AIDS drugs for millions of infected people.

The Treatment Action Campaign (TAC), which has targeted President Thabo Mbeki and other officials since its disobedience campaign began in March, said it was putting protests on hold pending a meeting of the National AIDS Council on May 17.

"We are suspending the campaign in the interest of ensuring the fullest opportunity for government to prove its good faith," TAC's executive committee said in a statement.

"However, should we encounter further unjustifiable delays or deceit, we will continue with all existing campaigns to get agreement on a national plan that saves lives by preventing HIV infection and treating people with AIDS."

South Africa has the highest number of people living with HIV in the world, but the government has refused to provide life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs through state hospitals, saying they are too expensive and toxic.

The TAC -- which says the policy causes 600 AIDS deaths a day in a country with some 4.7 million HIV infections -- has mounted an angry campaign to force a change and last month began occupying offices, blocking traffic and protesting against officials to drive its point home.

More than 100 TAC members have been arrested in the campaign, which includes the laying of culpable homicide charges against Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang and Trade Minister Alec Erwin.

The group has also booed Mbeki, who has been sharply criticized since he publicly questioned the widely-accepted link between HIV and AIDS in 2000.

While cabinet ministers have rejected calls for a swift change in South Africa's AIDS policies, TAC said Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who heads the national AIDS council, had agreed that next month's meeting would include discussion of its demands for state-funded anti-AIDS drugs.

It added that it proposed that any conclusions reached at the meeting would be put to the government as "urgent recommendations" that should be considered and adopted within three weeks.

"The outcomes must include using the legal powers of the government to reduce the prices of medicines," TAC said.

On Sunday, drug giant GlaxoSmithKline Plc said it would cut the price of certain AIDS drugs by almost 50 percent for developing countries -- a move which falls short of TAC's demand for full competition with generic types of the drug.