Dianne Feinstein: “with respect to Uganda, I would like to read testimony from a Ugandan HIV/AIDS director before the House regarding the…”

“with respect to Uganda, I would like to read testimony from a Ugandan HIV/AIDS director before the House regarding the promotion of prevention by the President of Uganda. Let me quote this: For some, he promoted a message of delaying sexual debut. For others, he urged them to be faithful to one partner and to use a condom. It was his three-part message that was effective in Uganda. In my personal experience, I believe this three-part message is critical. Currently, one-third of all prevention funds must be reserved for abstinence until marriage programs. This earmark limits the amount of funds available for other prevention programs, including preventing mother to child transmission. There are literally 5 million to 10 million orphans already from AIDS in Africa, and it is going to be much more. All we are saying, is that the one-third earmark should not apply to programs that give a pregnant woman a 90 percent chance of preventing the transmission of AIDS to the unborn child. That is all we are doing in this amendment, providing some flexibility. Remember this overwhelming statistic. The estimates are there will be in excess of 20 million orphans by 2010 in Africa. There should be flexibility. Our amendment allows the people on the ground to design a HIV/AIDS prevention program that is most effective at stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS.”