*EPF109 12/01/2003
Text: Top Level U.S. Delegation Assesses HIV/AIDS Needs in Africa
(HHS Secretary stops in Zambia on World AIDS Day) (1010)

On the first scheduled stop, Livingstone, Zambia, in the four-nation tour he is leading to Africa, U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said on World AIDS Day, December 1, that special attention must be paid to that part of the globe that has been most devastated by the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Thompson said the delegation accompanying him is the largest and most diverse mission of its kind, "bringing leaders from across the spectrum to witness what AIDS is doing to Africa and what we can do to help Africa fight back."

Thompson said it is especially important that private-sector leaders along with health experts, faith leaders and members of Congress have been included, "to witness together, to confer together, and to consider the different roles we can each play in confronting this devastating plague."

The delegation, led by Secretary Thompson and U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias, includes U.S. and international health officials, members of Congress, and leaders from more than 40 faith-based organizations, private-sector groups and charitable organizations that focus on the dread disease. The group began its trip with a visit to Livingstone Hospital, where they met with Zambian health care officials.

The aim of the November 30 to December 7 trip is to review the impact of national and international responses to HIV/AIDS in Kenya, Zambia, Uganda and Rwanda, and see what further steps can be taken to help Africans treat and prevent the disease.

Among the officials joining Secretary Thompson: Director-General of the World Health Organization J.W. Lee; Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS Peter Piot; and Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, Richard Feachem. Secretary Thompson is the current chairman of the board of the Global Fund.

In addition to seeing for themselves the huge impact of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa, the Thompson delegation will visit sites supported by President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and by the Global Fund. The delegation will also observe examples of existing public-private partnerships and discuss future plans for the private sector to engage in the fight against the diseases.

This is Thompson's second visit to observe HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in Africa; he led his first delegation to the continent in April 2002. One previous Health and Human Services mission of this kind took place in 1991, led by then-HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan. Dr. Sullivan, now co-chair of the President's Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS, also is a member of Thompson's delegation.

As the first HHS secretary to mark World AIDS Day on the African continent, Secretary Thompson issued the following statement:

(begin text)

Statement by Tommy Thompson
Secretary of Health and Human Services
Livingstone, Zambia
December 1, 2003

On this year's World AIDS Day, each of us should think about what we can do to stem the tide of this globally threatening disease and turn it back.

Both in the United States and worldwide, we need more volunteers to help care for the sick, to participate in public information and awareness campaigns, and to help spread the word on prevention and treatment. People need to know when they should be tested and should know their own HIV status. Our efforts must start with knowledge, because HIV/AIDS has no power over a well-informed person who makes safe, educated decisions regarding his or her health.

Worldwide, over 40 million people are suffering from HIV, particularly in developing countries in Africa, and almost five million new infections have occurred in 2003 alone. The United States has an estimated 900,000 HIV-positive individuals, one-third of whom do not know they are infected.

In response, the Department of Health and Human Services, in partnership with Ambassador Randall L. Tobias and his Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, is expanding the fight against the pandemic on both the domestic and global fronts. President Bush has made an unprecedented commitment of funds to fight HIV/AIDS abroad.

He has committed $15 billion over five years for his Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, including $10 billion in new money, of which $1 billion is a multi-year pledge to the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria. The United States has always been and remains the largest donor to the Global Fund, with a total pledge of over $1.6 billion, roughly 35 percent of all the resources promised to the organization.

At home and abroad, HHS is increasing the support devoted to HIV/AIDS prevention and research. I am confident that our mission to Africa will help produce further results and help me bring back fresh ideas. And while I am in Africa, Surgeon General Richard Carmona will address HHS employees on the effects of the epidemic in the United States, and then represent the United States at an HIV/AIDS conference in Latin America.

The Bush Administration spent a total of more than $16 billion last year on HIV/AIDS, and has asked for more than $18 billion this year for domestic and international AIDS programs. The Department of Health and Human Services supports a wide range of prevention, testing, treatment, and research programs, and is increasing its commitment to those agencies and initiatives that manage these programs, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; the National Institutes of Health; and the Health Resources and Services Administration, which administers the Ryan White CARE Act.

These combined efforts have provided treatment for the poor, research into medicines that lengthen and improve the lives of those infected, expanded prevention efforts, and spread the benefits of these programs to other countries, particularly those where the need is greatest.

For more information, I invite Americans to call the HHS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National AIDS Hotline at 1--800--342--2437 or visit the Federal World AIDS Day Web page at HYPERLINK "http://www.omhrc.gov/worldaidsday" ."

(end text)

(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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