by Congressman Elijah E. Cummings
Driven by a plague of Biblical proportions, the message of Chatinkha Nkhoma calls out to our shared humanity and collective self-interest.
The former Deputy Director of the Malawian Foreign Ministry, Ms. Nkhoma recently appeared before our House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources. Our hearing that day on AThe U.S. Role in Combating the Global HIV/AIDS Epidemic@ examined American trade policies which contribute to the shortage of life-preserving medicines in poor nations like Malawi.
White House AIDS Policy Director Sandra Thurman put the epidemic in perspective when she observed, AAIDS is claiming more lives than all of the armed conflicts in this century combined.@
Deaths resulting from AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa will soon surpass the 20 million people in Europe who died in the plague of 1347. 23 million adults and children in Africa are now HIV infected - 6 million in Asia.
Every day, an additional 16,000 people contract the virus which causes AIDS. Most live in the developing world and are receiving no medical treatment.
By comparison, 750,000 HIV survivors in America are living longer because of advanced (and expensive) drug therapy regimes. Ms. Nkhoma wants the same medicines and treatment for the people of Malawi and other poor nations - and so do I.
Pleading for America to lead a more-effective global AIDS initiative which combines medical treatment with national AIDS prevention efforts, Chatinkha Nkhoma spoke to our collective humanity when she declared:
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If we do not come together, then we will be watching the greatest killing event in history unfold when we know exactly how to stop it. Don=t let it be said that the only thing that told the difference between those who would live and those who would die during the days of the great plague was the color of a person=s skin.@Her challenge speaks to America=s enlightened self-interest, as well as to our humanity. People receiving treatment and hope are far more likely to help us control the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - a threat to humanity as complex and dangerous as any we have survived.
During 1998, 5.8 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide. Africa remains the region most harshly affected at the present, but the epidemic is accelerating in India, Asia and the former Soviet Union. Unless we check the plague=s course in the very near future, we will be hard pressed to insulate the American people from an intensified onslaught of the disease.
The consequences of social disintegration occasioned by the epidemic are equally ominous. In sub-Saharan Africa, India and the former Soviet Union, a growing number of political, military and technical leaders are infected. Unless we respond effectively, we may confront the chilling prospect of nuclear powers led by people who are dying - people who may not wish to die alone.
Our response to the global HIV/AIDS epidemic must be as serious and sustained as the measures we accept to protect ourselves from military attack. The threat to our survival is of the same order of magnitude.
Motivated by self-interest as well as conscience, the United States must lead an urgent, international AIDS program which offers medical treatment and hope, as well as prevention and acts of compassion. Otherwise, our children may inherit a world like Ms. Nkhoma=s Malawi, a world in which the hospitals are overflowing and the morgues operate 24 hours a day.
I welcome the additional $100 million in AIDS prevention and humanitarian assistance which President Clinton and Vice-President Gore recently proposed for Africa, but I am convinced that our national interest demands a far more comprehensive answer to the perils we face.
American trade policies and budget debates must give precedence to the priorities of survival. We must develop a response to AIDS which reflects the truth in Chatinkha Nkhoma=s message that we are all one world, one humanity.
The children of this world will live - or die - together.
-The Honorable Elijah E. Cummings represents the 7th Congressional District of Maryland in the United States House of Representatives.