Political Quotes

“On August 19, 2000, President Clinton signed into law bipartisan legislation that pledges more than $400 million to fight AIDS and other infectious diseases in Africa and around the world. There are few greater crises that face us today than the AIDS pandemic. Alarming statistics are reported from around the globe. In Africa, more than 13 million people have died from AIDS, and an estimated 24.5 million are infected with the human immunodeficiency virus HIV. More than 1 in 3 adults in Botswana are HIV-positive. Burma and Cambodia have recently had the sharpest increases in the rate of infection. In Haiti, more than 1 in 20 adults are infected. The XIII International AIDS Conference in South Africa was defined by the fact that 90 percent of those infected with HIV do not have the means to pay for the drugs to treat it. The epidemic is fueled by poverty, poor health, illiteracy, malnutrition, and gender bias. These are the same problems that developing nations have struggled with for many years. But even more urgency becomes warranted as these factors contribute to the exponential growth of an epidemic.”