Talking Points from GAA

[Guest guest]

Media

Talking Points

We’ve stalled

·

Reports from the front lines

o

Anticipated funding and supplies are being cut off from the front

lines

o

Doctors, nurses, healthcare workers and families are facing impossibly

gut-wrenching choices about who lives and who dies. 

§

Treatment slots suspended  u Waiting lists  u People being left behind

o

The worst is yet to come:

§ Overburdening

health facilities (undoing the health services strengthening many donors are hoping

to accomplish by shifting resources away from AIDS).

§ Patients

will start sharing their pills, increasing drug resistance

§ Incentive

will be removed for people to test for HIV, which will sabotage prevention

efforts

·

Reports from the White House

o

Donors are:

§ Curbing

growth    u Disengaging from the fight   u Retreating   

o

Funding to fight AIDS is:

§

Flat lining    u Plateauing   u Drying up   u Being capped

o

Obama is avoiding the one positive legacy of the Bush

administration. He is hitting the “re-set” button on U.S. AIDS

policy, putting it back to the back burner where it was 10 years ago.

o

Responding to criticism of Obama’s global AIDS policy the

week prior to the Vienna AIDS Conference, a State Department spokesperson told

Voice of America that, “What matters is not dollars.”

o

Unlike the Bush Administration which understood HIV/AIDS as not

only a humanitarian issue but also a national security issue, Obama

doesn’t seem grasp that if we’re not increasing access to treatment

we are laying the groundwork for failed states.

o

Obama seems intent on going down in history as the “Neville Chamberlain of global AIDS

control efforts.” His GHI compact with the virus – as now

designed – gives Africa’s most horrific infectious disease license

for unbridled expansion.

We should be surging

·

Missed opportunity

o

Drugs that once cost $12,000 a year have fallen to less than $100

o

A highly effective and proven mechanism for multilaterism, country

ownership and accountability – the Global Fund – is about to be

left to whither on the vine.

·

At a time when the Global Fund should be taken to scale

(particularly in light of how the World Bank wastes contributions in its feeble

global health efforts) and emulated for child survival, global education, etc.

o WHO estimates that

with proper funding now, the costs of fighting AIDS would begin to fall within

five years. But with half-measures, the epidemic will continue to grow and the

costs will rise without end.

·

This

has been the reoccurring AIDS control nightmare since 1981: Failure to spend

what it takes to stop AIDS in its tracks sooner, only to witness the costs of

doing so multiply a few years later.

o

Impressive gains will be lost

·

When we should be scaling up, we are dialing back

·

We’re on the verge of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

·

What to expect in Vienna

o

Activists are focusing on a 3x6 campaign

·

Obama is breaking promises America made to the world at past G8

Summits and UN Sessions.  He’s also breaking his own personal promise.

·

In 2003, many dismissed 3x5 as completely unrealistic.  But

because of US presidential leadership, critics were proven wrong.  Obama now

needs to show similar leadership and say “Yes we can!” to 3x6 (a 3

year, $6 billion US commitment to the Global Fund).

·

In Vienna, the

AIDS community will call for Obama to commit over the next 3 years to provide

$6 billion to the Global Fund.

o

Treatment is prevention

·

ARV

drugs can help prevent HIV transmission by dramatically reducing the viral load

in an infected person.

·

In

a study where one partner is HIV positive and the other negative, when the

positive partner was on AIDS treatment there was a 92% reduced risk of

infection for the other partner.

·

" Test

and treat " strategies, which involve widespread testing and early initiation

of anti-retroviral treatment -- if combined with smart prevention counseling

– could significantly reduce HIV transmission in the next decade.

·

In Vienna, AIDS activists plan to highlight the

importance of “Treatment as Prevention.”

o

Pediatric AIDS

·

Preventing parent-to-newborn transmission is one of the lowest

hanging fruit in addressing the epidemic.  It is one of the best investments

one can make in “Treating to Prevent.”  Indeed, the elimination of

parent-to-newborn transmission is doable within the next five years.

·

Globally, 2 million children are living with HIV/AIDS; 1.8 million

of them are in sub-Saharan Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, only 35% of HIV

positive children that need ARVs are receiving them. Without intervention, the

risk of parent-to-child-transmission of HIV is 20-45%. With intervention, it is

under 2-5%. But in 2008, less than half of all pregnant HIV positive women

received drugs for prevention of parent-to-child transmission.

·

In Vienna, you

will see the heads of UNICEF, UNAIDS, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and

Malaria commit themselves to ending pediatric AIDS. Through the Campaign to End

Pediatric AIDS, or CEPA, we will work together to scale up diagnosis,

treatment, and care for children living with HIV/AIDS, prevent mother to child

transmission of HIV.

1 of 1 File(s)

Main 3x6 messages for Vienna.doc