AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Thu, 10 Jan 2002

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Thu, 10 Jan 2002
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Tanzanian Opposition Leaders Take HIV Tests to Encourage Others to be 
Tested

Leaders of Tanzania's opposition Civic United Front party yesterday 
took HIV tests at the nation's largest AIDS referral hospital and 
promised to make the results public as part of an effort to encourage 
Tanzanians to get tested, Reuters reports. CUF National Chair Ibrahim 
Lipumba and Secretary-General Shariff Ahmed said they expect to have 
the test results "within the next few days." Lipumba added that when 
they receive the results, "whether they are negative or positive, we 
will make sure Tanzanians know," explaining that the men were "issu-
ing a challenge to all party members and all Tanzanians to go and be 
tested." Members of Parliament were asked last year to voluntarily 
get tested at the launch of the Tanzanian Parliamentary AIDS Coali-
tion. However, only 40% of members agreed to be tested. The National 
AIDS Control Council and the Ministry of Health estimate that nearly 
two million Tanzanians over the age of 15 have HIV/AIDS (Reuters, 
1/9).

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Increased International AIDS Spending 'Serves Our Government's 
Broader Interests', St. Petersburg Times Editorial Says

U.S. senators must "act quickly" and pass a resolution that would au-
thorize increasing international AIDS spending to improve chances 
that the measure will be fully funded in the appropriations process, 
a St. Petersburg Times editorial says. The resolution, a companion to 
the House version passed last month, would authorize increasing an-
nual international disease funding from $675 million to $1.3 billion, 
"more than half" of which could be used to "curb HIV/AIDS and the op-
portunistic infections" associated with the virus, according to the 
editorial. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan estimates that $7 bil-
lion to $10 billion is needed annually in the U.N. Global Fund to 
Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to "figh[t] the ravages of in-
fectious diseases on all ... fronts." However, "only $1.6 billion in 
pledges" has been given to the fund since it was established last 
year. Although to most Americans the AIDS epidemic "may seem remote 
and nonthreatening," the disease and the poverty resulting from the 
epidemic "are insidious agents of instability in the world, and the 
international community has a huge stake in combatting them," the 
editorial says. "Joining an international campaign against AIDS and 
other infectious diseases is not only the humanitarian thing to do: 
It also serves our government's broader interests of peace and sta-
bility in the world," the editorial concludes (St. Petersburg Times, 
1/9).

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The Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, 
a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, by National 
Journal Group Inc. © 2002 by National Journal Group Inc. and Kaiser 
Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

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