Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS, is caused from infection by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
Last week at the African Summit in Abuja, Nigeria on HIV/AIDS, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for a “a quantum leap” in the scale of resources available to the battle against AIDS and announced the creation of a “war chest” or Global Trust Fund of seven-to-ten billion dollars a year.
A few days later, on May 1, while in Philadelphia addressing the Council of Foundations, Secretary-General Anna urged the Council’s membership of 1800 foundations to support the Global Fund, saying, “If voluntary contributors have made the fight against AIDS a top priority, governments and the general public would not be far behind.”
The US Navy has already taken steps to lead in the American Defense Department’s effort to help combat the spread of AIDS within the ranks of the militaries of several African nations.
The Naval Health Research Center in San Diego is sending medical teams to sub-Saharan Africa as part of a two-year anti-AIDS initiative, says Commander Richard A. Shaffer, manager of the US Department of Defense (DoD) component of the Leadership and Investment in Fighting an Epidemic (LIFE) Program.
The Navy teams assist with HIV prevention programs in African militaries with ties to DoD, Shaffer says.
Countries currently receiving Navy assistance include South Africa, Botswana, Angola, Kenya, Benin, Zambia, Lesotho, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Nigeria.
Other US organizations involved with LIFE initiatives include the Agency for International Development, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Health Resources and Services Administration, US Navy researchers say.
In fiscal 2000, the LIFE program provided $100 million in US support for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa and India, according to the naval center. The Pentagon has received about $10 million to combat AIDS in African militaries.
In some African countries, as many as a third of the military personnel may be infected with HIV, Shaffer says. DoD personnel are assisting many of those militaries to establish HIV/AIDS-specific policies for military personnel, adapt and provide HIV prevention programs, and to train military personnel to implement, maintain and evaluate HIV prevention programs.
Awareness and prevention campaigns, combined with the availability of medications that retard the effects of the disease, have slowed the spread of AIDS and reduced the numbers of related deaths in the United States in recent years.
The US State Department estimates that almost 14 million people worldwide have died of AIDS, and that more than 95 percent of people with HIV live in developing nations. Ninety percent of children orphaned by the AIDS epidemic, for example, live in sub-Saharan Africa.
US Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, speaking to journalists during a February 4 interview, noted: “AIDS is a national security problem; it’s an economic problem; it is a devastating problem, especially in Africa, in sub-Saharan Africa.
Millions of people are at risk. And this creates a major problem for Africa and other parts of the world where AIDS is spreading. So it is a pandemic and it requires our attention.”
The US Department of Defense also sees AIDS as a global humanitarian issue that impacts US security interests, says Commander Shaffer.
“If you are concerned about international stability and about militaries actually being capable for not just defending their own borders, but also peacekeeping operations, then you want to make sure that they don’t have big problems with a disease such as HIV,” says Shaffer.