CAPE TOWN, 13. January 2009: In her AIDS-scarred South African township, Sweetness Mzolisa leads a chorus of praise for George W. Bush that echoes to the deserts of Namibia, the hills of Rwanda and the villages of Ethiopia.
Like countless Africans, Mzolisa looks forward to Barack Obama becoming Americas first black president Jan. 20. But – like countless Africans – Mzolisa says she will always be grateful to Bush for his war on AIDS, which has helped to treat more than 2 million Africans, support 10 million more, and revitalize the global fight against the disease.
– It has done a lot for the people of South Africa, for the whole of the African continent, says Mzolisa, a mother of seven, adding: -It has changed so many people’s lives, saved so many peoples lives.
Mzolisa, 44, was diagnosed with the AIDS virus in 1999 and formed a womens support group to “share the pain.” In 2004 she received a US grant to set up office in a shipping container and start a soup kitchen from the group’s vegetable garden.
She stretches her 10.000 US dollar in annual funding to train staff to look after bedridden AIDS victims, feed and clothe orphans, and do stigma-busting work at schools and taxi ranks.
Hundreds of similar small grass-roots projects are being funded by the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, alongside higher-profile charities and big state clinics.
Bush launched the 15 billion dollar plan in 2003 to expand prevention, treatment and support programs in 15 hard-hit countries, 12 of them African, which account for more than half the worlds estimated 33 million AIDS infections.
The initiative tied in with a World Health Organization campaign to put 3 million people on AIDS drugs by 2005 – a goal it says was reached in 2007.
Congress last year passed legislation more than tripling the budget to 48 billion dollar over the next five years, with Republicans and Democrats alike hailing the program as a remarkable success.
But the task remains enormous. More than 1,5 million Africans died in 2007 , fewer than one-third had access to treatment, and new infections continued to outstrip those receiving life-prolonging drugs.
In most African countries, life expectancy has dropped dramatically, and only a few, such as Botswana, have started to turn the corner again.
With no end in sight to the global financial crisis, there are fears about whether all the funding approved by Congress will be delivered.
Detractors say the US administration should have channeled the money through the UN; that it has placed too much emphasis on faith-based groups and abstinence; that it has trampled on womens health by shunning anything associated with abortions; that it has concentrated on AIDS treatment at the expense of prevention; and that it has diverted attention away from bigger killers such as pneumonia and diarrhea.
PEPFAR ambassador Mark Dybul dismisses criticism that the funding is too narrowly focused.
– In Africa you cannot tackle development goals unless you tackle HIV/AIDS, he says, citing the devastation wreaked on professions such as nursing and teaching.
Besides PEPFAR, Bush has launched a five-year, 1,2 billion dollar initiative to cut malaria deaths in 15 African nations by half.
Dybul also says it is unfair to accuse the United States of overemphasizing abstinence because PEPFAR is a major supplier of condoms to the targeted African countries.
For instance, PEPFAR figures show 60 million condoms going to Zambia, 40 million to Rwanda and 145 million to Ethiopia in the past five years.
-The administration and Bush himself deserve a lot more credit than they received for getting this job done,” says Josh Ruxin, assistant professor of public health at Columbia University.
Desperately poor Rwanda, where Ruxin runs a health care project, now has more than 100 centers where people can receive AIDS testing, counseling and treatment, up from just two in 2002.
PEPFARs biggest single success story is the 40-fold increase in the number of Africans receiving life-prolonging medication in the past five years.
Populous countries such as Nigeria and Ethiopia are still struggling to increase access to medication. But in Rwanda, 71 percent of those in need of AIDS drugs received them in 2007, up from 1 percent in 2003, and in Namibia the rate shot up to 88 percent, from 1 percent.
At a 22-bed clinic run by Living Hope, a church-based charity near Cape Town, 85 percent of patients now survive and only 15 percent die. A few years ago, it was the opposite, says Pat Ball, a retired teacher from North Carolina and a volunteer at Living Hope.
South Africa is also the biggest single recipient of PEPFAR money – 590 million dolar last year, more than it received during the entire eight-year Clinton administration, US Ambassador Eric Bost says.
Dybul, a specialist in infectious diseases whose title is now U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, concludes: – It is the largest international health initiative in history for a single disease. In any other circumstances, he would be getting a Nobel prize, he says of Bush.
Sweetness Mzolisa, overflowing with energy and enthusiasm, puts it more simply. -He has got heart. He cares about people.
Kilde: The Push Journal
