By: Paige Rohe

The world holds its breath, as the Bush Administration and the “Axis of Evil” (North Korea, Iraq, and Iran) exchange ‘fightin’ words.’ We are in the third or fourth year of the new millennium, depending upon how you look at it, and we are facing the same ugly menace of last century, Weapons of Mass Destruction. No one, not even the most remote indigenous peoples of the Amazon Basin, or the nomadic tribes of northern Africa can escape this menace. Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons, threaten all of us. And so, we Americans sit attentively in front of CNN, awaiting the latest news from the White House. Are we to face a world of peace, where even the most dangerous of differences can be resolved during prime time? Or will we find our brothers and boyfriends, husbands, wives, sisters, and mothers, engaged in yet another short, calculated strike in the Persian Gulf?  These are the worries which keeps American blood-pressure high and American kitchens stocked with a ready supply of comfort foods likes Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Yet, all the attention being paid to political bickering must inevitably draw energy and focus away from other, equally incendiary international situations.

In the spring of last year a landmark piece of legislation was introduced in the Senate entitled, “The US Leadership Act of 2002 in the Fight Against HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and TB.” Sponsored by a wide spectrum of Senators from Chris Dodd to Jesse Helms, the plan specified recommended policies for the American engagement in the Global HIV/AIDS crisis, setting several action-oriented programs into place. This bill was proposed in conjunction with President Bush’s request for over $1 billion for the FY2003 budget for “US International Spending to combat HIV/AIDS.” It was the largest budgetary request for Global HIV/AIDS spending in history. It seemed the United States had suddenly developed considerably more compassion for the suffering of those round the world living with HIV/AIDS.

In 1982, the same year officials adopted the term “acquired immunodeficiency syndrome” or “AIDS” to refer to the final stages of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), 500 men, women, and children in the United States died from opportunistic infections and cancers related to complications with AIDS.  The disease in this country has since grown to mammoth proportions, resulting in the deaths of almost 500,000 in the past twenty years. Now, with an estimated 300,000 out of 900,000 infected individuals unaware of their whether or not they are infected with HIV, experts predict the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S. to worsen.

However, the United States’ AIDS epidemic pales in comparison to the situation in Sub-Saharan Africa, which experiences the most severe pandemic of any region in the world. Despite claiming only 11% of the world’s population, Africans make up 70% of all AIDS cases- 28 million out of an estimated 40 million infections worldwide. In some areas, estimates of disease prevalence suggest an infection rate as high as one in every five individuals. More frightening still, experts predict a new group of countries to experience equally horrific levels of devastation to that of those in Sub-Saharan Africa. Referred to as the “Second Wave Countries,” India, China, Russia, Ethiopia, and Nigeria’s epidemics, if left unchecked, will seriously impact a total population of approximately 2.8 billion people (44% of the world’s population).

Unfortunately, a look at the last five years of the epidemic affirms suspicions that in Second Wave countries, the tragic advance of HIV/AIDS does not show evidence of slowing down. A study of the of the period from 1996 to 2001 by the US Agency for International Development found that HIV/AIDS incidence in the US has increased by 20%, whereas, among Second Wave countries, such as China and Russia, the numbers of men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS have increased ten and one-hundred fold (an increase of 130% and 1300% respectively).  Such widespread and devastating frequency of infection and disease will invariably affect the economic, social, and political institutions of not only these states but also that of other states in the same region.

According to a report by the Center for Strategic International Studies, because the Second Wave countries have great political and economic influence around the world, their AIDS crisis “will have enormous regional and global ramifications.”  The prediction of such

ominous circumstances for politically important countries like India, China, and Russia have forced the United States to sit up and take notice.

Though the US Department of State asserts that international health affairs such as infectious disease should be part of its foreign policy agenda, an individual walking off the plane onto American soil with HIV/AIDS does not pose the same threat that one with a highly contagious airborne illness like Smallpox might. Because HIV/AIDS is largely preventable and the illness of an African across the ocean poses no direct danger to the health of Americans, Congressional politicians had no impetus for immediate action on the issue until recently when the horrendous implications for Global HIV/AIDS could no longer be ignored. All appearances suggested that real work was about to be done on curbing the pandemics rampant progress.

Sadly, however, the ratification of the US Leadership Act of 2002 has been put on hold indefinitely, and will likely fall to the wayside as a new Congressional session begins with a large proportion of new politicians joining its ranks who may find Global AIDS the least of their priorities.  If we must go to war than we must. Be we are also obliged to address Global HIV/AIDS. The children of Africa left parentless from HIV/AIDS, the man dying on a mat in Delhi, the Russian who does not know she has HIV-none of these people can wait for even the duration of a ‘short, calculated strike.’ They need our help now. Their cause deserves a decisive and dedicated effort on the part of the United States. It may be their and our last and only hope.

Paige Rohe is an International Studies student at Emory University and a contributing writer for PurePolitics.com. She can be reached at feedback@purepolitics.com.