“South Africa’s moral conscience” speaks out on AIDS funding holdup

Speaking on a conference call with reporters, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu known as “South Africa’s moral conscience” pleaded that members of the United States Senate vote to triple the bipartisan funding of $50 billion for HIV/AIDS funding in Africa. Tutu believes that the United States has a responsibility to work towards increasing the HIV/AIDS funding and that if it does so “other countries will follow.”

Currently, throughout Africa, an estimated 22.5 million people have HIV/AIDS as of 2007 with an additional 1.7 million becoming infected that year alone. Tutu and others in the HIV/AIDS community believe that tripling the funding will increase treatment for 3 million people.

Tutu added that all too often people are unwilling to take a statistic regarding HIV/AIDS and put a face and name to it. “these statistics represent someone’s loved one,” Tutu added, “if we are able to put a face and name to someone we will recognize that we are talking about people’s flesh and blood.”

The urgency of Tutu’s remarks come as Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) as well as 6 social conservative senators are holding up the legislation unless a provision is added that would place a greater emphasis on treatment rather than prevention. Coburn believes “the vast majority of the money is going to get consumed by those wanting to help people with HIV, rather than [by] people with HIV.”