AIDS: Epidemic Without Borders

When the 13th International AIDS Conference opens today in Durban, South Africa, delegates will be coming to grips with a startling new U.N. report showing that the illness is exacting a much harder toll on Africa than previously estimated: At least half of all 15-year-olds in many sub-Saharan nations are likely to die of the disease in the next several years.

The U.S. Congress has tentatively set aside nearly $290 million for international programs to fight AIDS next year, up from the $235 million it will spend this year. But the biggest challenge to reining in the epidemic is the Senate’s reluctance to implement a bill passed in the House of Representatives in May that would allocate an additional $100 million for specific, highly effective programs in Africa.

The bill, HR 3519, by Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) and James A. Leach (R-Iowa), is a sensible, bipartisan attempt to replicate Uganda’s success over the last decade in cutting its AIDS infection rates by half. The money, which would be distributed by the World Bank and subject to thorough audits, would make AIDS testing more available, reduce mother-to-child transmission through obstetrics education, help care for the 40 million African children who will be orphaned by AIDS by the end of this decade, and encourage business and government leaders to speak frankly about how AIDS is spread.

Senate approval of the bill, however, will be an uphill battle because Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) insists that AIDS is “not a national security threat” and calls President Clinton’s May announcement to that effect “an appeal to, you know, certain groups.”

Another danger is that House and Senate negotiators will pass a compromise bill that appears to boost international AIDS spending but in fact only robs Peter to pay Paul by shifting federal funding from one pot to another.

World leaders understand that security threats often materialize in forms subtler than nuclear bombs but no less dangerous. The leaders at the ongoing AIDS summit and others at a meeting next week of the influential G-8 countries must come to see that the AIDS epidemic is a national and global threat no less dangerous than nuclear weapons.