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Africa Action Press Release
CONTACT:
Black Religious Leaders Join Africa Action in Demanding "Africa's Right to Health."Letter to President Bush Calls for Immediate Funding for AIDS in Africa and the U.S. as well; Urges U.S. Support for Debt Cancellation & Treatment Access for African countries Friday, February 28, 2003 (Washington, DC) - As Africa Action continues to build support for its Africa's Right to Health campaign, it today sent the following letter to the White House, signed by more than two dozen prominent Black religious leaders from across the U.S., calling for immediate steps to address the AIDS crisis in Africa and in the U.S. The letter is a call to conscience, urging President Bush to increase funding immediately for HIV/AIDS in Africa and in the U.S., to ensure access to affordable treatment for all those living with HIV/AIDS, and to support complete debt cancellation for African countries. The President's recently announced plan for AIDS in Africa will not provide any significant increase in funding until 2005, despite its promise to contribute $15 billion as a matter of "emergency." Over 5 million Africans will die of AIDS before then without access to treatment that such funding could provide. Signatories to the letter include: Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. of Chicago, IL; Dr. Kenneth L. Samuel of Stone Mountain, GA; Dr. Charles G. Adams of Detroit, MI; Dr. H. Beecher Hicks, Jr., of Washington, DC; Canon Frederick B. Williams of New York City; and Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr. The letter to President Bush notes the racial disparity in the HIV/AIDS crisis in the United States and globally. It emphasizes the disproportionate and destructive effect of this health crisis on Black people both at home and abroad. The letter states that the war on AIDS must begin "at the heart of the pandemic in Africa, where 75% of the world's AIDS cases are concentrated, and in the U.S., where African Americans account for more than 50% of new HIV infections." Asserting the importance of anti-AIDS treatment in defeating this health crisis, the letter's signatories call on President Bush to ensure access to treatment by committing sufficient resources NOW to meet the rising demand of domestic programs such as the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAP) and the Minority AIDS Initiative. The letter calls for a U.S. contribution of $3.5 billion for the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, and urges that the U.S. uphold African countries' rights to use generic production, compulsory licensing and other measures to obtain affordable medicines for their people. It also calls for U.S. support for the full cancellation of the debts owed by African countries to the World Bank and IMF, "as a crucial first step toward reducing the outward flow of financial resources desperately needed within Africa." The letter concludes: "Earlier this month we came together on Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day to demand the right to health for Black communities across the globe that live and die at the heart of this worst public health crisis the world has ever known. Today, we stand together to demand the policy changes necessary to eliminate this deadliest of killers.
February 28, 2003
Dear President Bush, On February 7th, Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day drew our attention to the global AIDS crisis, and in particular, its disproportionate and destructive effect on Black people both at home and abroad. This day served as both a memorial and a catalyst for action. We call on you to take immediate steps to eliminate the global scourge of AIDS. This battle must begin at the heart of the pandemic in Africa where 75% of the world's HIV/AIDS cases are concentrated, and in the U.S. where African Americans account for more than 50% of new HIV infections. Today, as we reaffirm our struggle to defeat the spread of HIV/AIDS, we call on you to show your dedication to this fight by committing all resources in your power to win the war against HIV/AIDS both in Africa and at home. Today, we call on you to affirm the value of Black lives by ensuring access to essential medicines and appropriate healthcare in Africa and globally in the fight against AIDS. The use of antiretroviral therapy in the US over the past five years has cut the AIDS death rate by 70% and turned an HIV diagnosis from a terminal illness into a chronic but manageable syndrome. Mr. President, twenty years into the pandemic during which 17 million Africans have already died and another 28 million are presently estimated to be HIV positive, it is past time to recognize that treatment IS prevention! Treatment programs strengthen prevention efforts, expand local health infrastructure, and improve overall delivery of care and support. The availability of treatment is an incentive for HIV testing, and it helps remove the stigma and discrimination against individuals living with HIV. Treatment of HIV and opportunistic infections also helps reduce the risk of transmission. And treatment helps cut overall costs by reducing hospital stays, decreasing the numbers of HIV cases, and enabling thousands to stay in the work force. Despite these well-known facts, here in the U.S. the insufficient funding of the AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs) and the Minority AIDS Initiative have deprived treatment access to the communities most desperately in need. 60% of those served by ADAP are people of color. The failure of the administration to keep funding for ADAP in step with demand for its services has forced 14 programs to close enrollment or limit access to antiretroviral treatments. An additional 6 programs have reported the likelihood of implementing ADAP restrictions by the end of this fiscal year. We call on you to ensure access to treatment by committing sufficient resources to meet the rising demand of these important domestic programs. Even more shockingly, less than 1% of people living with HIV in Africa have affordable access to these life-saving drugs. We call upon you to invest in Africa's future by committing a full U.S. share of $3.5 billion to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The U.S. must commit its fair share in order to ensure that this important vehicle has the level of resources and international support required to finance the treatment and prevention programs of African governments and their non-governmental partners, securing access to life-saving treatment and effective prevention programs. Furthermore, to guarantee the success of the war on AIDS, trade barriers that restrict access to essential medicines must be eliminated, differential pricing policies should be developed, and countries' rights to use generic production, compulsory licensing and parallel importing to obtain affordable medicines for their people must be enforced. We call upon you today to support the full cancellation of the debts owed by African countries to the World Bank and the IMF, as a crucial first step toward reducing the outward flow of financial resources desperately needed within Africa. The reasons this must be done are more than sufficient to make the case. They include the illegitimacy of most debts incurred by unrepresentative regimes of the past that received loans for geopolitical and not developmental reasons during the Cold War; the liability of creditors themselves for failures of the economic policies that they imposed; and the fact that paying these illegitimate debts deprives Africa of investment in health, education and physical infrastructure at a time when the continent faces the worst health crisis in human history. Under the existing debt relief program-the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative, countries receiving debt relief have only realized a 27% reduction in payments. Further, many African countries not selected for HIPC also face increasing poverty, an enormous health crisis and huge debt burdens that deserve to be cancelled. You have an opportunity to use the wealth, power and position of privilege of the U.S. to enhance human development in Africa, the world's most impoverished region, by leading the call for the cancellation of Africa's debts. We call on you, Mr. President, to stand on the right side of this human justice struggle, on the right side of economic development, on the right side of this moral imperative. We see our struggles in this country inextricably linked with those of our brothers and sisters in Africa. Earlier this month we came together on Black HIV/ AIDS Awareness Day to demand the Right to Health for black communities across the globe that live and die at the heart of the worst public health crisis the world has ever known. Today we stand together to demand the policy changes necessary to eliminate this deadliest of killers. Will you stand with us? In Solidarity with the more than 30 million people of African descent living with HIV/AIDS, We are sincerely yours (in alphabetical order),
Jane Abell, O.P. - Dominican Sister, Houston, TX
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