World Aids Day Statement from Joanne Carter, Executive Director of RESULTS/RESULTS Educational Fund

December 3, 2011 — President Obama’s World AIDS Day commitment — to increase the number of people receiving antiretroviral HIV therapy (ART) through U.S. programs from 4 to 6 million by 2013, including providing ART to 1.5 million pregnant women — is a crucial step toward ending AIDS. This new target will put powerful new scientific evidence to work, preventing the spread of HIV and giving rise to a new generation free of AIDS. While ambitious, the target is wholly achievable, because United States leadership through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief and support for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria have already created effective, efficient platforms for delivering AIDS treatment and prevention. Equally important as this new treatment target, the President also committed to ensuring that the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is fully funded.

Fully funding the Global Fund is necessary for reaching universal access to HIV treatment and to eliminating tuberculosis as the leading killer of people living with AIDS. Importantly, the President called on other donor governments to meet their Global Fund pledges, on governments in emerging economies to step up as new donors, and on the U.S. Congress to join with the administration to fulfill its commitment to the Global Fund. Both the President and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have called for shared leadership in ending AIDS, and the Global Fund has proven itself to be the most effective means of ensuring that leadership — with two dollars leveraged from other donors for every dollar the U.S. provides. Congress must support full funding for the Global Fund, and the President can lead the way out of this global crisis by working urgently with other donors to mobilize the resources needed for the Global Fund to continue AIDS treatment scale-up now.

See this link from One.org for video from yesterday’s event. George W Bush at (0:33:05), President Obama (0:38:10), Bill Clinton (1:48:00), Bono, and others.