Donald M. Payne: “I rise in recognition of World AIDS Day 2007. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, the issue of…”

“I rise in recognition of World AIDS Day 2007. As chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health, the issue of HIV and AIDS is a particular matter of concern and importance to many of us. But it is an urgent and timely matter of global concern. It is urgent because HIV and AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria kill more than 6 million people a year. Of the 33 million people living with AIDS today, 6 percent are children. Ninety percent of these children live in Africa, the continent least equipped to care and treat HIV-infected persons. Those numbers will increase if the world does not immediately step up efforts to halt the spread of AIDS. The topic is extremely timely because the mandate of the President's emergency plan for HIV and AIDS, PEPFAR, expires in 2008. My colleagues and I on the House Committee on Foreign Affairs are in the midst of writing legislation to extend the PEPFAR program for another 5 years. Congress and the President worked together to create PEPFAR in May of 2003. Now, a few short years later, according to the State Department's Office of Global AIDS Coordinator, over 800,000 people are receiving anti-retro medication in PEPFAR's 15 focus countries; 12 of those countries are in sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly 50,000 new patients join those receiving the life-saving therapy each month. We have indeed come a long way.…”