Mike Levin: “it is my pleasure to join with Senators Leahy and Hagel in submitting S. Con Res. 53, which encourages the development…”

“it is my pleasure to join with Senators Leahy and Hagel in submitting S. Con Res. 53, which encourages the development of strategies to reduce hunger and poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. In the year 2000, almost 200 million Africans, fully a third of the total population, went to sleep hungry and 31 million African children under the age of five were malnourished. One child out of seven dies before the age of five, and one-half of these deaths are due to malnutrition. Nearly half of sub-Saharan Africa's population, some 291 million people, live on less than $1 a day, and almost 85 percent of the world's 41 heavily indebted poor countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. These problems are compounded by epidemics of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, and other diseases now ravaging the continent. The human costs are staggering. Almost 4 million people are infected with AIDS each year, adding to the over 25 million already infected. Over 75 percent of the people worldwide who have died of AIDS lived in Africa. One million people each year, mostly children, die from malaria. Hunger only adds to the spread of disease, rendering the poor and malnourished too weak to defend against AIDS and other infectious diseases. Even if treatment clinics are available, those suffering from hunger are unable to afford fees for care or medicine to aid them with their battle against the illness.”