PRESS CONFERENCE ON HIV/AIDS

The United States was joining France, Italy, Luxembourg and other countries in creating partnerships between American and African health-care systems to fight HIV/AIDS, United States Secretary for Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said at Headquarters this afternoon.

At a joint press conference with Bernard Kouchner, France's Minister of Health, G. Sirchia, Italy's Health Minister, and Charles Goerens, Development Cooperation Minister of Luxembourg, he said the effort involved matching hospitals, clinics, nurses and the whole gamut of health care with health institutions in 25 African countries.

Responding to correspondents’ questions, Mr. Thompson said that sending anti-retroviral drugs to Africa would do no good unless the infrastructure was in place.  Besides delivery, it was necessary to administer the drugs, carry out HIV testing, and monitor the progress of patients.  The twinning process provided an opportunity to build the infrastructure, working hand in hand with the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, which would be sending money for prevention, treatment and other purposes.

Mr. Kouchner outlined the origins of the twinning process, explaining how a few European ministers had started the International Therapeutic Solidarity Fund a few years ago to cut the transmission of HIV from pregnant women to their unborn babies, mainly in Africa.  The initiative had eventually grown into a network linking European hospitals with health institutions in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Mr. Sirchia said that the added value of the initiative was the synergy achieved among the participating countries, particularly with the involvement of the United States.  Mr. Goerens stressed the importance of impact-driven, integrated approaches, involving the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the whole United Nations system.

Asked how much money the United States Government had contributed to the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Mr. Thompson said it had given $300 million so far.  The Department of Health and Human Services and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had requested an additional $100 million each in this year's budget.

In response to a question about the United States contribution, Mr. Thompson replied that the $300 million went into the Global Fund.  It was a publicly funded initiative in which the Department of Health and Human Services was setting up, through the Centers for Disease Control, programmes to deliver services in

25 countries

The initiative announced today was basically a private one, he added.  Under it, the University of California at San Francisco would spend its own funds, as well as research dollars from the National Institutes of Health, to set up clinical operations in Zimbabwe.  The Association of Health Plans would do the same with its 23 projects throughout the world.

Stressing the importance of the twinning initiative, a representative of the WHO said there were an estimated 36 million people in the world living with AIDS; 6 million of them needed care, including anti-retroviral therapy; about 230,000 actually had access to care, half of them in Brazil.

He said there was now very good evidence that it was possible to deliver effective anti-retroviral care at much lower cost because prices had come down.  Guidelines had been released yesterday, and there were now 11 therapies on WHO's list of essential medicines.

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