I just finished a conference call regarding PEPFAR with Senator Harry Reid and a few fellow ONE volunteers. Senator Reid wanted to touch base with some of his NV constituents who have been following the progress of PEPFAR and actively pushing for passage this year, and share with us his gratitude for helping to move this important legislation forward.
Senator Reid mentioned that he had hoped to pass PEPFAR before the G8 summit and was disappointed that it didn’t, but was very pleased to announce that after the bill had been blocked for weeks by only a few senators, he was finally able to bring PEPFAR to Senate floor for a vote. Senator Reid said, “It is critical that we pass this important legislation. Diseases like AIDS, Malaria and TB are ravaging the developing world. In Africa alone AIDS kills 8,000 Africans every day, it takes no weekends off.”
ONE volunteers, Amber McIntosh, Adam Bellamy, Renee Meyocks, Karen Frost-Arnold, and Emily Miller were all eager for the opportunity to represent the 13,000 ONE members in Nevada, and we thanked Senator Reid for his leadership and commitment to pass PEPFAR.
Amber was able to ask Senator Reid how he envisioned the process will move forward, Senator Reid responded that he hopes the bill will pass tomorrow.
Karen was able to tell Senator Reid about her trip to Zambia, and how grateful she is to know that this legislation will commit resources to people just like those she met in Zambia who were suffering in their fight against AIDS every day.
We are almost there! If you haven’t already, call your senators and ask them to vote to pass this critical bill.
There is a chance that an individual senator could raise something called a “budget point of order,” in which case we’d need 60 votes to bypass this additional obstacle or else the entire bill will be defeated.
We believe that there is strong, bipartisan support to pass PEPFAR, but we’re not out of the woods yet. This is the moment we need you most. Please call now and ask your senators to support this bill for $50 billion dollars in critical global AIDS, TB and malaria over the next five years.
All the information you need to make your call is here.
The Senate “invoked cloture” on PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) late in the afternoon on Friday.
This basically means that the bill has passed another hurdle and is continuing to move forward.
We are expecting debate on the Senate floor starting today around 3pm EST. We’ll keep you posted and give you web link to the live debate as it happens.
A few senators have indicated that they intend to introduce amendments to reduce the amount of funding in the bill (currently $50 million for AIDS, TB and malaria over the next 5 years) but as of now, we don’t expect those amendments to pass.
This week PEPFAR released that as of March 2008, the program was contributing to the treatment of 1.73 million people, 1.68 million of them in Africa. PEPFAR has provided care to 12.7 million pregnant mothers and prevented an estimated 194,000 infant infections.
PEPFAR has now been appropriated $18.8 billion across its first five years and is the largest international health initiative in history focused on one disease. It’s original goal was to support treatment for 2 million people in its first five years. Nine months from the end of the first five years, the trajectory looks good to meet that goal.
Senator Reid asked for unanimous consent to begin debating the PEPFAR bill yesterday afternoon but a couple of Republican Senators continued to object (despite the assurance that amendments would be allowed.) Moments later, as you can watch in this video, he filed for cloture.
Rewind to your high school civics class or your favorite senate.gov glossary page:
Cloture is the only way that the Senate can place a time limit on consideration of a bill- and in doing so, overcome a potential filibuster. The Senate must allow for 30 additional hours for discussion before the vote, and then the bill must receive 60 votes in order to pass.”
This sets the vote for Friday, although we could potentially see the vote happen today. A successful cloture vote will allow the Senate to begin debating the bill.
Millions of lives around the world rely on this funding is on the line- so we’ll be watching and keeping you posted here on the ONE Blog with updates.
Hanh is a HIV-positive widow in Vietnam who was featured in “A Powerful Noise,” which was produced by Unify Films with participation from CARE and ONE.
Hello! My name is Hanh and I am from Vietnam.
I grew up in an isolated island in the northeast of Vietnam. When I was 18 I got married and moved with my husband to a place about three hours by boat from my homeland. We lived there for three years before I decided finally to take my daughter to a Vietnamese hospital after she had been sick for a long time. That was when I found out she was HIV positive. Then, I found out that my husband was too. They told me I didn’t even have to take a test. All of us were infected.
My daughter was three-and-a-half-years old. Eventually, they both passed away.
I returned to my home, and decided I needed to take action within my community. We had many HIV/AIDS related activities sponsored by outside organizations and programs like PEPFAR.
Ninety percent of AIDS patients in my community are taking ARV’s provided by PEPFAR and one hundred percent of us have been benefitting from other PEPFAR programs. We have access to medicine as well as treatment and care for children. But it’s not always about medical care. We also benefit from training courses and community building activities.
There are still many more problems that arise in my community. We need to increase access to medical treatment, and more people are always becoming infected. We also need to address problems like women’s awareness of HIV/AIDS, sexual education and care for children.
I hope that more and more people will benefit from programs like PEPFAR. Of course, being a beneficiary of the program myself I understand how important it is.
I want to say personally and on behalf of all people living with HIV in Vietnam that we are very grateful for programs like PEPFAR. Thank you for going forward hand in hand with us on this. We need your support.
I ask that you please keep going on the road that you chose.
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