By Connor Bowering
A young global ambassador for the fight against HIV/AIDs and other contagious diseases, recently visited Houston. As a teenager Sibulele Sibaca, a South African, became an AIDS orphan, but went on to found an organization to improve the lives of girls and young women.
On her visit here, she made a pitch for Americans to send billions of tax dollars to countries that many of us will never see.
In one meeting, someone asked: Why should we do it? What do Houstonians have to gain?
Sibaca gave a sobering response: You could have a brother, and someone from my country could have sex with him and give him AIDS.
Sobering indeed.
Sibaca was asking Houstonians to support the Global Fund, an international partnership that fights against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria by investing in local prevention and treatment programs in high-risk areas.
Since its foundation in 2002, the Global Fund has saved more than 27 millions lives; treated 17.5 million cases of HIV, 5 million cases of TB, and 108 million cases of malaria; and provided hundreds of millions with preventative measures such as mosquito nets and HIV testing.
But for Houston, does the Global Fund do more than warm charitable hearts? Yes.
The health issues the fund addresses are international — and they definitely affect a city full of travelers and home to the world’s largest medical center, which sees more than 18,000 international patients a year. The Global Fund saves Houston lives.
With 281 cases of TB in 2017, nearly 33,000 residents living with HIV/AIDS, and a handful of travelers’ malaria cases every year, Harris County is no stranger to global health issues.
By stopping highly infectious diseases at the source, strengthening foreign governments’ abilities to control outbreaks, and generating new treatments and research on these diseases, the Global Fund diminishes the chance that new cases will break out in our city, and it improves the outlook for the cases that we do see.
The Global Fund’s biggest impact on Houston health will come from its work with HIV/AIDS.
Through price negotiations and strategic bulk purchasing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) from a wide base of pharmaceutical companies, the Global Fund was decisive in lowering the average global price of ART from $10,000 a year per patient 20 years ago to just $500 ayear today. But in the U.S., the price of ART remains sky-high — a problem for our city’s 32,800 residents with HIV/AIDS.
In September 2020, when the first generic HIV/AIDS treatment becomes available, its price will reflect the lower global price —meaning treatment for Houstonians with HIV/AIDs will cost dramatically less. We can thank the Global Fund.
Perhaps even greater news is that the Global Fund expects to save 16 million additional lives and prevent 234 million infections by 2023, and possibly eradicate the diseases by the target of 2030.
Efforts such as those require money.
With more than 60 countries and several foundations backing the Global Fund, the $14 billion it needs for the next three years will likely be met by the October deadline.
The United States must continue to do its part. Historically the U.S. has shown strong bipartisan support of the Global Fund, providing one-third of its budget and attracting the support of other countries.
Continuing that proud history means the U.S. must commit to providing $1.56 billion a year — a 3.1 percent increase.
Those numbers seem high. But this works out to about 3 cents a day per taxpayer — asmall price for 16 million lives.
Please write or call your representative and senators asking them to support the Global Fund.
Bowering is a sophomore at Rice University, Eagle Scout and RESULTS Houston volunteer.