Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde Global Leadership against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008

Thursday July 24, 2008

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support for H.R. 5501.

While most widely recognized for renewing our commitment to global AIDS relief, the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde Global Leadership against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008 reauthorizes provisions on all three of these deadly diseases of poverty.

The World Health Organization reports that 1.7 million people died of tuberculosis in 2006, with 200,000 dying from HIV-associated TB. The emergence of multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant TB, known as MDR and XDR, pose a grave risk to global health. These strains are far deadlier than normal TB and are much more difficult and expensive to treat. A contagious, airborne disease, TB knows no barriers or borders and can only be successfully controlled in the United States by also controlling it overseas.

The Lantos-Hyde Act declares TB control a major objective of U.S. foreign assistance programs. The legislation requires a 5-year plan to support the treatment of 4.5 million tuberculosis patients and 90,000 new MDR-TB cases.

This bill incorporates substantial portions of my bill, H.R. 1567, the Stop Tuberculosis Now Act. The Lantos-Hyde Act prioritizes the Stop TB Partnership's strategy, including expansion of the successful treatment regimen for both standard TB and drug-resistant TB. It further promotes research and development of new tools.

Recognizing the deadly synergy between tuberculosis, an opportunistic infection, and HIV/AIDS, the Lantos-Hyde Act authorizes assistance to strengthen the coordination of HIV/AIDS and TB programs. TB is the leading killer of people with HIV/AIDS, and the explosion of drug-resistant TB in sub-Saharan Africa threatens to halt and roll back our progress in combating both diseases.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, the legislation authorizes assistance for the development of new vaccines for TB. The current TB vaccine is more than 85 years old and is unreliable against pulmonary TB, which accounts for most of the worldwide disease burden. New TB vaccines have the potential to save millions of lives and would lead to substantial cost savings.

I urge my colleagues to vote "aye' on H.R. 5501 today. We can control and win the fight against AIDS and TB.