Africans issue request to Obama on malaria

A group of delegates have urged US president Barack Obama to show leadership in the fight against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria during the 5th Pan-Africa Malaria Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya from November 2 to 6.

The demonstrators on Wednesday November 4 wearing t-shirts saying “Yes We Can-Help the other Half,” promised to send thousands of cards and messages urging Obama to continue scaling up treatment for these three diseases by significantly expanding investments in the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

“We believe that Barack Obama will not permit Africa’s struggle to control AIDS, TB and malaria to stop halfway,” TB advocacy advisor for the ACTION Project, Lucy Chesire said.

Chesire said, “We need increased US investment and partnership to get to the finish line.”

The fight against AIDS might be derailed following funds cuts by the Global Fund. Donor government’s contributors to the Global Fund have not kept pace with the demand of high quality proposals aimed at making life-saving drugs available to everyone who needs them.

The organization is facing a major funding gap next year which must be filled if it is to continue its work to scale up and expand successful projects.

“The fight against AIDS, TB and malaria is teetering dangerously because of the global financial crisis. Countries are curtailing ARV scale-up and programs that have seen massive progress could grind to a halt,” said national co-ordinator of the National Empowerment Network of people living with HIV in Kenya, Nelson Otwoma.

Otwoma said that President Obama could lead the world in setting its moral agenda and ensuring “we collectively go beyond rescuing bankers, brokers, corporate barons and investors to guaranteeing that all people needing medicines for AIDS, TB and malaria can have access and survive.”

According to experts, Africa and low and middle-income countries in general are nearly 50 percent of the way toward reaching the goal of treating cases of HIV, TB and malaria among those who most require treatment urgently.

Since 2003 the Global Fund has supported countries in providing 2.3 million people with Antiretroviral (ARVs) drugs, 5.4 million with TB treatment and delivered 74 million anti-malaria treatments worldwide.