World News

Compiled by Martin Flynn

HIV activists join the US election campaign trail.

HIV activists join the US election campaign trail

HIV groups across the USA have entered the closely fought Primary stages of the US Presidential election.

In South Carolina last month, activists from the Campaign to End Aids (C2EA) joined the Democratic Primary candidates Senators Obama and Clinton..

“I’m here to get the word out that we need universal health care,” Tennessee activist Ron Crowder said: “We need Aids funding here and abroad and we need a president who will care about Aids, not just during the election year.”

“We are not there as part of the Obama or the Hillary fan club, but as voters demanding attention to the issues,” said C2EA HIV positive organiser Larry Bryant.

With HIV in the US now affecting poor Latino and Black Afro American communities disproportionately, activists hope to elicit more hard commitments from Obama and Clinton before the November election.

Meanwhile, President Bush’s PEPFAR Aids bill flounders in Congress. The five year, $15 billion plan to combat Aids in Africa is becoming a political battlefield as it comes up for renewal.

The Democrats in Congress are calling for an increase in foreign HIV funding, and an end to support for abstinence prevention funding whilst the Republicans are belatedly concerned about internal economic problems.

As the global economic downturn deepens, battles for further HIV and Aids funding will inevitably get more bitter.

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