*EPF209 03/18/2003
Chairman Hyde Introduces Bill For $15,000 Million to Fight Diseases
(HR 1298 targets HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria) (580)

By Stephen La Rocque
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- The chairman of the House International Relations Committee has submitted a bill to the House of Representatives that would provide $15,000 million over five years to fight HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria worldwide.

Representative Henry Hyde (Republican of Illinois) introduced HR 1298, titled the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003, into the House of Representatives March 17. The proposed legislation was referred to the House International Relations Committee for action.

Joining Hyde in submitting the bill were Representatives Tom Lantos (Democrat of California), the highest-ranking Democrat on the International Relations panel; James Leach (Republican of Iowa), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific; Dave Weldon (Republican of Florida), a physician who serves on the House Appropriations Committee; and Barbara Lee (Democrat of California) who serves on the Subcommittee on Africa and chairs the Congressional Black Caucus Task Force on Global HIV/AIDS.

The aim of the bill is to provide assistance to foreign countries to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

HR 1298 calls for the development of a comprehensive, five-year, global strategy to combat the deadly diseases.

"During the last 20 years, HIV/AIDS has assumed pandemic proportions, spreading from the most severely affected region, sub-Saharan Africa, to all corners of the world, and leaving an unprecedented path of death and devastation," the bill's authors state.

They noted that more than 65,000,000 individuals worldwide have been infected with HIV since the epidemic began, and more than 25,000,000 people have lost their lives to the disease.

"More than 14,000,000 children have been orphaned by the disease," the bill adds. "HIV/AIDS is the fourth-highest cause of death in the world."

HR 1298 states that at the end of the last year, "an estimated 42,000,000 individuals were infected with HIV or living with AIDS."

Of these individuals, it notes, "more than 3,200,000 were children under the age of fifteen and more than 19,200,000 were women."

The proposed legislation states that HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa.

There "AIDS has killed more than 19,400,000 individuals (more than 3 times the number of AIDS deaths in the rest of the world) and will claim the lives of one-quarter of the population, mostly adults, in the next decade," HR 1298 says.

The bill cites President Bush's January 28 address to Congress in which he announced his administration's intention "to embark on a five-year emergency plan for AIDS relief, to confront HIV/AIDS with the goals of preventing 7,000,000 new HIV/AIDS infections, treating at least 2,000,000 people with life-extending drugs, and providing humane care for millions of people suffering from HIV/AIDS, and for children orphaned by HIV/AIDS."

Besides setting a "comprehensive, integrated five-year, global strategy to fight HIV/AIDS," the bill would also provide "significant resources for multilateral efforts to fight HIV/AIDS" and "increased resources for United States bilateral efforts, particularly for technical assistance and training, to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria."

The bill's goals also include "encouraging the expansion of private sector efforts and expanding public-private sector partnerships to combat HIV/AIDS" and "intensifying efforts to support the development of vaccines and treatment for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria."

(The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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