A Huge Bush Achievement....

Amazing how few people mention what George Bush has done for Africa...

Five years after Bush committed $15 billion to launch the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the program is being touted as that rarest of Bush administration success stories - one largely undiminished by major setbacks even amid lingering controversy over some of its elements.

Since 2003, the program known as PEPFAR has provided compassionate care to 10 million HIV/AIDS sufferers - including four million AIDS orphans - in Africa and elsewhere overseas.

More than 2.1 million people are now receiving retroviral drugs to combat their infections, up from a mere 50,000 people who had access to the life-saving medications in 2003. More than 240,000 children have been born in Africa free of HIV infection because mothers received drugs that blocked transmission of the deadly virus.

Perhaps most significant, however, Bush this summer secured congressional re-authorization of the program for another five years, tripling the funding to $48 billion. Included in the amount is $9 billion to battle malaria and tuberculosis, the leading killer of HIV-infected Africans. The money is targeted at 13 "focus" countries in Africa, plus Vietnam and Haiti.

"While AIDS and these diseases were on the (U.S.) government's consciousness before Bush took office, their place in appropriations was minimal," said Josh Ruxin, a Columbia University public health professor and a member of the Global HIV Prevention Working Group. "Today these are major global initiatives with impact in dozens of countries where their interventions save and improve the quality of millions."

Ruxin, who is currently working with AIDS sufferers in Rwanda, says the impact of Bush's efforts are felt most profoundly in sub-Saharan African, where it's estimated 9.7 million people require treatment with retroviral drugs.

PEPFAR "has demonstrated to the world that the U.S. government cares enough about AIDS to cover the cost of new testing centres, training of doctors and nurses, and indefinitely cover the cost AIDS medications," Ruxin said.

Working alongside governments and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, the Bush administration program "has done more for AIDS, TB, and malaria treatment, prevention, and testing, than any initiative in history."