Report: President Obama ‘hurt’ by criticism of global AIDS funding

Jul 21st, 2010 11:49 AM UTC
By Chris Scott

With the ongoing International AIDS Conference in Vienna, the global HIV/AIDS epidemic has been thrust back into the spotlight the last several days. The Guardian has this report of the US response to criticism of recent AIDS funding:

Barack Obama has been personally hurt by claims he reneged on promises to increase US funding to fight Aids, the head of his administration’s efforts to counter the disease has said, rejecting the criticism as unjust.

Eric Goosby, who leads Pepfar, the President’s Emergency Plan For Aids Relief, has himself been targeted by noisy demonstrators at the international Aids conference in Vienna who have invaded the platform, accusing the US of allowing people with HIV to die. The issue of funding in an economic recession – and particularly the US government’s contribution – has been the tense underlying theme of the meeting.

Activists say Obama promised an extra $50bn (£33bn) for Aids by 2013 before he was elected but is now flat-lining Aids funding, with an increase of just 2.5% in 2011. Obama has made HIV/Aids part of a global health initiative that is to get an overall funding increase of 8% – but other initiatives, particularly on cutting the deaths of women in childbirth and their babies, will get a bigger increase.

Goosby said Obama was disturbed by activists’ charges, pointing out that the US is the world’s largest donor towards the fight against HIV/Aids.

“I think it has been frustrating to be presented as a non-contributor. The administration and the president have been hurt by the characterisation that the US has not stepped up to the plate and taken this commitment seriously in all arenas,” Goosby said.

The US provided more than 50% of total global health spending, he said, and in many sub-Saharan African countries Pepfar provided between 40% and 95% of the Aids treatment response. “That really reflects an extraordinary commitment, unmatched and unparalleled by any other country on the planet, not for one year but for the past seven years,” he said.

Before Obama was elected Pepfar had put 1.8 million people in the developing world on treatment, Goosby said. That was now up to 2.5 million and Pepfar was committed to reaching 4 million. “What other country has done anything close to that?” he asked.

TAGS: Barack Obama, HIV/AIDS