AHF slams US House Republicans for retreat on Global AIDS Fund

The USA-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), which provides AIDS medical care and services to more than 152,000 individuals in 26 countries worldwide, has strongly condemned a move by House Republicans who, last Friday proposed slashing President Obama’s 2011 funding for global AIDS programs by $813 million.

The Republican action (affecting last year’s budget, not the fiscal year 2012 budget released Monday), if successful, would cut $450 million from the USA’s contribution to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as well as $363 million from additional bilateral programs including former President George W Bush’s landmark President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the successful US global AIDS program. PEPFAR claims 3.2 million people with HIV/AIDS are currently on lifesaving antiretroviral treatment as a result of its programs around the world. These Republican funding cuts represent at least 1.8 million lives that would be lost, based on PEPFAR’s per patient treatment cost of approximately $436 per patient, per year, the AHF argues.

Short-sighted cuts