AFRO-NETS> Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Mon, 11 Feb 2002

[Cecilia Snyder <csnyder@ccmc.org>]

Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report - Mon, 11 Feb 2002
-----------------------------------------------

* Denver Mayor Says City Council Member's Objections to His African
  Trip are Related to AIDS Bias
* World Bank Offers Additional $500M Loan for African Countries to
  Fight HIV/AIDS
* Mbeki Says in State of the Nation Address That Fight Against AIDS
  Will Continue to Focus on Prevention, Not Antiretroviral Treatment

--
Denver Mayor Says City Council Member's Objections to His African 
Trip are Related to AIDS Bias

Denver Mayor Wellington Webb on Wednesday said that City Council mem-
ber Ted Hackworth's objections to his upcoming trip to Africa are a 
"foil" to halt the AIDS-related humanitarian aspect of the mostly 
trade-related mission, noting that humanitarian measures are "ulti-
mately good" for the city's economy, the Denver Rocky Mountain News 
reports. "In a broader context, we have to figure out what kind of 
city we want to be. Do we want to be a city of the 1960s, or a city 
that can compete in international markets in 2020?" Webb asked. Hack-
worth, chair of the city's finance committee, asked the Mayor's Of-
fice of Economic Development & International Trade at a Wednesday 
committee meeting to produce the names of the 14 city officials whose 
trips will be financed by the city, a list of companies providing 
corporate sponsorships and details relating to the special revenue 
fund set up for the mission, which will visit Botswana, Namibia and 
South Africa between Feb. 18 and March 3. "At a time when the city is 
looking to cut $9 million from the budget, I just question the prior-
ity of expenditures," Hackworth said, adding that his objections were 
purely financial and had nothing to do with AIDS. The trip, which is 
meant to foster trade relations, is estimated to cost $70,000, with 
corporate sponsors supplying about $22,000 of the total, Ron Bern-
stein, director of the mayor's office that is overseeing the trip, 
said. He added that the humanitarian part of the trip would not be 
paid for with funds from his office (Draper, Denver Rocky Mountain 
News, 2/7).


--
World Bank Offers Additional $500M Loan for African Countries to 
Fight HIV/AIDS

The World Bank yesterday approved an additional $500 million loan for 
African countries to fight HIV/AIDS, bringing the total loan amount 
under the bank's Multi-Country HIV/AIDS Program (MAP) for Africa to 
$1 billion for the current fiscal year, the AP/Nando Times reports. 
The World Bank approved the other $500 million loan last September. 
The new long-term, zero-interest loan, provided by the bank's Inter-
national Development Association, will be used for HIV/AIDS preven-
tion, treatment and care programs in 12 to 15 sub-Saharan African na-
tions, as well as for cross-border prevention programs (AP/Nando 
Times, 2/7). The total loan amount of $1 billion is the most the bank 
has ever given to fight HIV/AIDS in a single year, the Washington 
Post reports. The World Bank estimates that recipient nations will 
only pay back 35% of the loans' "true value" because of inflation 
(Brown, Washington Post, 2/8). The $1 billion loan will augment the 
roughly $2 billion now pledged by multiple donors to the Global Fund 
to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the Wall Street Journal re-
ports. "Between the bank's program, the global fund and growing bi-
lateral commitments, Africa finally has the resources to begin fund-
ing this fight in full," Keith Hansen, manager for the World Bank 
AIDS team for Africa, said (Phillips, Wall Street Journal, 2/8). An 
estimated $3 billion each year is needed to fund HIV/AIDS prevention 
efforts, treatment and care programs in Africa, according to the 
World Bank and UNAIDS (AP/Nando Times, 2/7).


--
Mbeki Says in State of the Nation Address That Fight Against AIDS 
Will Continue to Focus on Prevention, Not Antiretroviral Treatment

South African President Thabo Mbeki this morning in his state of the 
nation address said that the government will increase its efforts to 
halt the spread of HIV, but added that the efforts will focus on pre-
vention and not the use of antiretroviral drugs, the Associated Press 
reports. AIDS activists, who recently won a lawsuit to force the gov-
ernment to create a plan for dispensing the antiretroviral drug nevi-
rapine to HIV-positive pregnant women to prevent vertical HIV trans-
mission, had hoped the government, which is appealing the ruling, 
would agree to dispense the drugs through the national health care 
system. However, Mbeki's speech "dashed hopes" that a widespread 
treatment program would begin any time in the near future. "Continu-
ing work will be done to monitor the efficacy of antiretroviral in-
terventions against mother-to-child transmission in the sites already 
operational and any new ones that may be decided upon," Mbeki told 
the South African Parliament, referring to several test sites run by 
the government that provide nevirapine. He added that, for now, the 
government will focus on prevention, education, treatment of AIDS-
related illnesses and the development of an HIV/AIDS vaccine (Cohen, 
Associated Press, 2/8). South Africa's vaccine research program has 
been described by UNAIDS Executive Director Peter Piot as "the larg-
est and most comprehensive in Africa and one of the largest in the 
world." Mbeki added that the multi-pronged approach is necessary be-
cause "[a]ny focus on one issue, at the expense of others, may have 
the effect of undermining what we all seek to achieve." An estimated 
4.7 million -- one out of every nine -- South Africans have HIV/AIDS 
(Agence France-Presse, 2/8).

Not Going Far Enough?

HIV/AIDS activists this week had expressed concern that Mbeki would 
not address the epidemic in his speech, which opened this year's par-
liamentary session, and opposition party leaders urged him to "clear 
up any lingering confusion about whether HIV causes AIDS." Mbeki has 
in the past questioned the causal link between the virus and the dis-
ease. Although Mbeki did not address his beliefs on a causal link in 
his speech today, New National Party leader Marthinus van Schalkwyk 
said that Mbeki "had to show he fully understood HIV and AIDS, and 
compromise where he has faltered," while United Democratic Movement 
leader Banu Holomisa warned Mbeki that his "continued denial that HIV 
causes AIDS will lead to South Africans giving him a 'dignified exit' 
from office." Pan African Congress MP Patricia de Lille added that 
"[m]ost of the people affected by AIDS are really not interested in 
the philosophical debate of what causes [AIDS] and what does not. All 
they want are drugs and a cure, which hospitals are ready to provide 
but cannot because the government won't allow them to" (Xako, Busi-
ness Day/allAfrica.com, 2/7). Former President Nelson Mandela also 
made a "thinly veiled rebuke" of Mbeki at an awards ceremony yester-
day honoring two University of Witwatersrand professors who co-
founded the perinatal HIV research unit at Chris Hani Baragwanath 
Hospital. Mandela, who presented Drs. James McIntyre and Glenda Gray 
with the 2002 Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights, said 
"some fundamental issues [involving HIV/AIDS] unfortunately con-
tinu[e] to rage in manners that detract attention from what needs to 
be our core concern. However, I have reason to believe that insofar 
as this debate affects our country, it's likely very soon we will 
solve the problem, and many people, especially in government, are 
thinking very seriously about the observations that have been made in 
regard to the policy of the government" concerning HIV/AIDS (South 
African Press Association, 2/7). He added that he believed "beyond 
argument or doubt" that prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmis-
sion "must be central" to any government HIV/AIDS prevention program 
(Associated Press, 2/7). Former U.S. U.N. Ambassador Richard Hol-
brooke, who now heads the Global Business Council on HIV/AIDS, added 
that the disease is "going to be a great test of [South Africa's] 
leadership" and that the government must "step up to the plate and 
deal with this problem head on" (South African Press Association, 
2/7).

--
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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