PEPFAR UPDATE
TAKE ACTION NOW! Check here (http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll158.xml) to find out if your Representative supported the Global AIDS bill, H.R. 5501, which reauthorizes the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
(PEFPAR). Please let those who supported the bill know that you appreciate the spirit of bipartisan consensus that led to significant improvements in the bill. Visit the CRS Action Center (http://actioncenter.crs.org) to send a message now.
WHY IS PEPFAR IMPORTANT? Because of PEPFAR, CRS has saved more than 100,000 lives through antiretroviral treatment and provides HIV care and support services for another 250,000 HIV positive people.
Men and women who were on the brink of death are now leading normal lives, caring for their children and contributing to their communities because they are on antiretroviral therapy. More than 60,000 orphaned children are being cared for, going to school and embracing a bright future. Nearly 350,000 youth have been educated about risky behaviors and how abstinence-until-marriage and mutual fidelity within marriage is the most effective way to prevent HIV infections. Visit the CRS website (http://crs.org/public-policy/hiv_aids.cfm) for more information about PEPFAR.
WHAT DOES PEPFAR HAVE TO DO WITH MY FAITH? Our faith tradition as Catholics requires us to care for“the least of these”and to uphold the life and dignity of all people. People affected by HIV or suffering from AIDS need and deserve our love and care just as Jesus called on us to care for those who are “hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison.” Catholic social teaching instructs us to live in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world. Pope John Paul II reminded us that we must commit ourselves to this common good: “That is to say the good of all and each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”
Morris Nassoro lost both his parents to AIDS when he was just 7 years old. He now lives with his grandmother in rural eastern Kenya, where thanks to PEPFAR CRS supports them with psychosocial counseling, educational assistance and some medical assistance.
WHAT IS THE CHURCH'S POSITION ON PEPFAR? USCCB and CRS praise the bipartisan consensus that led to significant improvements in the bill that the House passed. The House strengthened HIV and AIDS programs by authorizing $50 billion in funding over five years, increasing nutrition resources needed for effective treatment, improving the health care capacity of host governments, and expanding HIV and AIDS treatment and prevention.
WHERE DOES PEPFAR STAND NOW? Next the Senate will consider its own PEPFAR reauthorization bill, S. 2731, passed by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March. USCCB and CRS will continue to seek improvements to the Senate bill and to monitor any attempts to weaken it and will alert you for appropriate action.
For more information, contact:Tina Rodousakis, Grassroots Advocacy Manager, CRS, 410-951-7462, trodousa@crs.org
Gerry Flood, Counselor, International Justice and Peace, USCCB, 202-541-3167, gflood@usccb.orgMarch 19, 2008
Meet Penina Petro from Tanzania. She is HIV positive. She is one of more than 100,000 people whose lives have been saved thanks to the treatment program Catholic Relief Services has established because of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Read more about Penina
(http://crs.org/tanzania/aids-relief-photos/ and the lifesaving PEPFAR program.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR EFFORTS! Thank you for all of your advocacy efforts to ensure that the bill providing antiretroviral treatment, care to, and prevention services for HIV-affected people around the world will include important provisions that Catholic Relief Services (CRS) and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) have identified as critical. The House Foreign Affairs Committee passed its PEPFAR reauthorization bill the end of February. Read the USCCB/CRS letter to the House of Representatives: http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/2008-3- 7_pepfar_hb_5501.pdf). The Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week passed its version of the PEFPAR bill. USCCB and CRS are currently reviewing the Senate’s bill to ensure that our priorities are adequately reflected.
WHAT’S NEXT? Congress is in recess until March 31st. We expect the House of Representatives and then the Senate to consider their respective bills soon after they return. USCCB/CRS will continue to seek improvements to both bills and to fend off any attempts to weaken them. We will need your help once the bills are considered especially when amendments are offered. This may happen with little advance notice so we hope you can to respond to our alerts quickly.
HOW DOES THIS ISSUE RELATE TO MY FAITH? Our faith tradition as Catholics requires us to care for “the least of these” and to uphold the life and dignity of all people. People affected by HIV or suffering from AIDS need and deserve our love and care just as Jesus called on us to care for those who are “hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison.” Catholic social teaching instructs us to live in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world. Pope John Paul II reminded us that we must commit ourselves to this common good: “That is to say the good of all and each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”
WHAT HAS PEPFAR ACHIEVED? CRS has saved over 100,000 lives through antiretroviral treatment and provides HIV care and support services for another 250,000 HIV positive people because of PEPFAR. Men and women who were on the brink of death are now leading normal lives, caring for their children and contributing to their communities because they are on antiretroviral therapy. More than 60,000 orphaned children are being cared for, going to school and embracing a bright future. Nearly 350,000 youth have been educated about risky behaviors and how abstinence-until- marriage and mutual fidelity within marriage is the most effective way to prevent HIV infections. Visit the CRS website (http://crs.org/public-policy/hiv_aids.cfm) for more information about PEPFAR and its accomplishments.
WHAT IS THE CHURCH’S POSITION? The USCCB and CRS are advocating for several important provisions to be included in the reauthorization of PEPFAR. Our main priorities include:
• Authorizing $50 billion for PEPFAR programs over the next five years;
• Expanding the integration of food and nutrition into treatment programs that will benefit people affected by HIV;
• Providing resources to address the shortage of healthcare workers and strengthen healthcare systems;
• Restoring a balanced approach to HIV prevention that includes effective abstinence and behavior change programs;
• Preventing inclusion of mandates that would integrate family planning and reproductive health services into HIV prevention, care and treatment. Such provisions would effectively exclude CRS and other religious organizations from participation in PEPFAR and reduce the effectiveness of prevention programs.
For more information, contact:
Tina Rodousakis, Grassroots Advocacy Manager, CRS, 410-951-7462, trodousa@crs.org
Gerry Flood, Counselor, International Justice and Peace, USCCB, 202-541-3167, gflood@usccb.org
PEPFAR: The United States President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief
February 1, 2008
Washington, DC – Information released today in The Power of Partnerships: The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Fourth Annual Report to Congress underscores the importance of the close working relationship between the American people and host nations in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Reviewing the success of President George W. Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR/Emergency Plan), Ambassador Mark Dybul, PEPFAR Coordinator, said: “The Emergency Plan works in partnership with host nations to build capacity for the long run, beyond the initial five years of PEPFAR.” He added: “We’re supporting the local leadership that is turning the tide of the pandemic.”
In 2007, PEPFAR partnered with 2,217 local organizations — up from 1,588 in 2004 — and 87 percent of partners were local. PEPFAR estimates its investment in network development, human resources and local organization capacity development in 2007 at roughly $640 million. From 2004 through 2007, PEPFAR supported nearly 2.6 million training and retraining encounters for health care workers. In 2006 and 2007, PEPFAR provided approximately $281 million to support training activities.
Just five years ago, many wondered whether HIV prevention, treatment and care could ever successfully be provided in resource-limited settings where HIV was a death sentence. Only 50,000 people living with HIV in all of sub-Saharan Africa were receiving antiretroviral treatment.
Thanks to partnerships with host nations, the change since 2004 has been remarkable. PEPFAR has supported antiretroviral treatment for approximately 1.45 million men, women, and children through September 2007 — including approximately 1.36 million in the 15 PEPFAR focus countries, and more than 1.33 million in sub-Saharan Africa. It is estimated that this treatment support will save nearly 3.2 million adult years of life through September 2009. The Emergency Plan has also supported care for more than 6.6 million people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS, including 2.7 million orphans and vulnerable children. It supported counseling and testing for more than 33 million people to date, including more than 10 million pregnant woman at antenatal clinics.
PEPFAR reached approximately 57.6 million people through community outreach programs to prevent sexual transmission in the focus countries during 2007. Since the program’s inception, the Emergency Plan has supported prevention of mother-to child-transmission for women during more than 10 million pregnancies. For pregnant women found to be HIV-positive, it has provided antiretroviral prophylaxis in more than 827,000 pregnancies, preventing an estimated 157,000 infant HIV infections.
The success of the Emergency Plan is firmly rooted in partnerships between the American people and the people of the countries in which it is privileged to serve — governments, non-governmental organizations including faith- and community-based organizations, and the private sector. Through these partnerships, PEPFAR is building systems and empowering individuals, communities and nations to tackle HIV/AIDS.
With support from PEPFAR, host countries are developing and expanding a culture of accountability that is rooted in country, community, and individual ownership of and participation in the response to HIV/AIDS. While HIV/AIDS is unmistakably the focus of PEPFAR, the initiative’s support for technical and organizational capacity-building for local organizations has important spillover effects that support nations’ broader efforts for sustainable development.
The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment ever by any nation for an international health initiative dedicated to a single disease – a five year, $18.8 billion, comprehensive approach to combating HIV/AIDS around the world. For more information about PEPFAR or its Fourth Annual Report to Congress: The Power of Partnerships, please visit www.PEPFAR.gov.
February 8, 2008
Urge your Members to Improve Global HIV Legislation
TAKE ACTION NOW! The House Foreign Affairs Committee (http://foreignaffairs.house.gov) will consider Chairman
Lantos’ draft legislation to reauthorize the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) on Thursday, February 14th. Your Member is on the House Foreign Affairs Committee and will make critical decisions regarding this lifesaving program. Please visit the CRS Action Center now (http://actioncenter.crs.org) to contact your Members and urge them to:
1. Maintain the bipartisan consensus around the successful PEPFAR program that has saved millions of lives.
2. Remove provisions in Chairman Lantos’ draft bill that call for the integration and coordination of HIV prevention, care and treatment services with “reproductive health” and “family planning” services and that eliminate any designated funding for effective, evidence-based prevention programs focusing on abstinence and behavior change.
3. Retain provisions in Chairman Lantos’ draft bill that significantly increase funding for PEPFAR, strengthen anti-malaria and anti- tuberculosis programming, build up the healthcare workforce in affected countries and increase food and nutrition programs for affected populations.
HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO MY FAITH? Our faith tradition as Catholics requires us to care for “the least of these” and to uphold the life and dignity of all people. People affected by HIV or suffering from AIDS need and deserve our love and care just as Jesus called on us to care for those who are “hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison.”
Catholic social teaching instructs us to live in solidarity with our brothers and sisters around the world. Pope John Paul II reminded us that we must commit ourselves to this common good: “That is to say the good of all and each individual, because we are all really responsible for all.”
WHAT HAS PEPFAR ACHIEVED? Catholic Relief Services (CRS) has saved over 100,000 lives because of PEPFAR.
Men and women who were on the brink of death are now leading normal lives, caring for their children and contributing to their communities because they are on antiretroviral therapy. Orphaned children are being cared for, going to school and embracing a bright future. Youth are being educated about risky behaviors and how abstinence-until-marriage and mutual fidelity within marriage is the most effective way to prevent HIV infections. Visit the CRS website (http://crs.org/public-http://crs.org/public-policy/hiv_aids.cfm) for more information about PEPFAR and its accomplishments.
WHAT IS THE CHURCH’S POSITION? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and CRS are advocating for several important provisions to be included in the reauthorization of PEPFAR. The House bill currently under consideration includes some of these provisions but eliminates others. Read the USCCB/CRS letter to House Foreign
Affairs Committee Members (http://crs.org/public-policy/pdf/2008-02-PEPFAR-Ltr.pdf for more details. USCCB/CRS urge Members to:
1. MAINTAIN funding for promotion of abstinence-until-marriage and behavior change programs as a key HIV prevention strategy as reflected in the original PEPFAR legislation. Chairman Lantos’ draft bill eliminates this dedicated funding. Based on CRS’ experience, without designated funding, proven programs
that promote abstinence-until-marriage and mutual fidelity within marriage will be under-resourced and the high quality Church-based health structures and services will be sidelined in the battle against HIV.
2. REJECT provisions that mandate or give preferential treatment in awarding PEPFAR funding to groups that perform family planning or reproductive health services. Chairman Lantos’ draft includes these objectionable provisions. USCCB and CRS are very concerned about efforts to redefine PEPFAR’s mission to require HIV prevention services to include family planning and reproductive health services. If these services were mandated or given preferential treatment, then CRS and other religious groups would be unable to participate in PEPFAR. Hundreds of thousands of patients served through our networks, especially in the poorest, most remote areas of the globe, would face interrupted or even cessation of life-saving therapy.
3. RETAIN funding increases for PEPFAR and EXPAND funding for nutrition programs that benefit people affected by HIV. Theproposed House bill includes these provisions. While PEPFAR currently provides some funding for therapeutic feeding, it is not available to all who need it because of insufficient funding.
For more information, contact:
Tina Rodousakis, Grassroots Advocacy Manager, CRS, 410-951-7462, trodousa@crs.org
Gerry Flood, Counselor, International Justice and Peace, USCCB, 202-541-3167, gflood@usccb.org