[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 12]
[Senate]
[Pages 17487-17488]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



            GLOBAL AIDS AND TUBERCULOSIS RELIEF ACT OF 2000

  Mr. MOYNIHAN. On August 19, 2000, President Clinton signed into law 
bipartisan legislation that pledges more than $400 million to fight 
AIDS and other infectious diseases in Africa and around the world.
  There are few greater crises that face us today than the AIDS 
pandemic. Alarming statistics are reported from around the globe. In 
Africa, more than 13 million people have died from AIDS, and an 
estimated 24.5 million are infected with the human immunodeficiency 
virus HIV. More than 1 in 3 adults in Botswana are HIV-positive. Burma 
and Cambodia have recently had the sharpest increases in the rate of 
infection. In Haiti, more than 1 in 20 adults are infected.
  The XIII International AIDS Conference in South Africa was defined by 
the fact that 90 percent of those infected with HIV do not have the 
means to pay for the drugs to treat it. The epidemic is fueled by 
poverty, poor health, illiteracy, malnutrition, and gender bias. These 
are the same problems that developing nations have struggled with for 
many years. But even more urgency becomes warranted as these factors 
contribute to the exponential growth of an epidemic.
  According to AIDS expert Peter Godwin, an epidemic requires specific 
responses in three areas: long-term protection of vulnerable 
populations; short-term relief and rehabilitation of those in crisis; 
and the strengthening of basic institutions against future shocks to 
come. Each of these responses comprises an infinite number of sub-
components.

[[Page 17488]]

  The Senate's passage of this bill is remarkable. But our work has 
just begun. According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, 
Asia has reached a critical point in the development of the AIDS 
epidemic. Though India has a relatively low infection rate, it has more 
than four million cases and is now the nation with the largest number 
of HIV cases in the world. In Africa, the U.N. has predicted that half 
of all 15-year-olds in the African countries worst affected by AIDS 
will eventually die of the disease, even if the rates of infection drop 
substantially in the next few years. Sandra Thurman, the director of 
the Clinton administration's anti-AIDS effort, put it best: ``We are at 
the beginning of a pandemic, not the middle, not the end.''
  On February 3, Mr. Feingold and I introduced S. 2032, the Mother-to-
Child HIV Prevention Act of 2000. This bill has been included in this 
assistance package and will authorize $25 million to bolster 
intervention programs, which include voluntary counseling and testing, 
antiretroviral drugs, replacement feeding, and other strategies.
  At the beginning of this year, a score of bills were introduced by my 
colleagues in this body. Some proposals were more ambitious than 
others. No single proposal would have been a complete solution. Neither 
is the relief package before us. But each was an approach that did not 
require waiting for a cure. And each could make a difference. I hope 
this momentum will not face--but instead, grow internationally and 
exponentially--and that we will not become fatigued by this most 
formidable challenge.

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