Former President George W. Bush
Bush initiative saves millions of lives around the world
DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer
taffet@dallasvoice.com
The Dallas-based PEPFAR program, now celebrating its 20th year, has saved more than 20 million lives in Africa and around the world.
In 2003, the singer Bono persuaded President George W. Bush to allocate the money to distribute AIDS medications throughout Africa. The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — better known as PEPFAR — continues to distribute HIV medications in more than 50 countries and operates from the Bush Presidential Center in Dallas.
Entrance to the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas
The program was funded through the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Act of 2003. Bush advisor Condoleeza Rice encouraged Bush to make PEPFAR the cornerstone of his Africa foreign policy, and the president embraced the program as an example of his “compassionate conservatism.”
For the first five years, 15 countries — 14 in Africa and Vietnam in Southeast Asia — received most of the funding. When the program was reauthorized in 2008, PEPFAR created networks of countries, and medications were distributed to people in 85 countries.
In 20 years, the program has spent more than $100 billion, making it the largest program to address one disease ever mounted by any government in history.
Today, more than 20 million people receive HIV medications through PEPFAR. Five million babies have been born free of HIV, thanks to drug interventions.
As a side benefit of the program, childhood immunizations for a variety of illnesses have increased in those countries participating in PEPFAR, and maternal death rates during childbirth have been reduced.
Funding for PEPFAR is authorized on a five-year cycle and has been approved with overwhelming bipartisan support.
But this year, reauthorization of this Republican program is being held up by Republicans who claim money is being sent to organizations that offer abortions.
The White House denies that assertion, and PEPFAR’s own rules prevent money and medications from funneling through an organization that provides abortions.
PEPFAR can continue through next September with existing resources. The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a one-year extension of program funding, but that bill isn’t gaining traction in the Senate.
To reach the goal of eradicating HIV in the U.S. by 2030, AIDS must be eliminated around the world. PEPFAR has been the largest and most successful AIDS-reduction program created during the 40 years of the epidemic. If it is left unfunded, the number of cases of HIV that develop into AIDS will explode around the world, and the number of cases in the U.S. will increase rather than plummet.
