Communities of practice
US Senate votes to increase malaria and tuberculosis support
17 Jul 2008
Paul Chinnock
Source: Wall Street Journal
(see original article
)
Source: Washington Post
(see original article)
The US Senate has passed a bill authorising increased expenditure on programmes to address malaria and tuberculosis (TB), in addition to ‘re-authorising’ commitments to HIV/AIDS programmes globally. The bill was supported by President George Bush and also by presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama. However, it had to overcome considerable opposition from some Republican senators.
The bill – entitled ‘A bill to authorize appropriations for fiscal years 2009 through 2013 to provide assistance to foreign countries to combat HIV AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, and for other purposes’ – was passed by 80 to 16 votes.
According to the Wall Street Journal, The bill lays out a five-year strategy for confronting AIDS, TB and malaria, while authorizing, though not actually providing, a total funding level of $48 billion for global health programmes. It also lays out a policy framework on such closely related issues as gender, care for orphaned children, nutrition, and health care worker shortages.
The Washington Post says the price tag of the bill amounts to $50 billion and describes the increased in funding as ‘dramatic’.
Comments
Featured Meetings:
Is your organisation working against the infectious diseases of poverty?
There are no comments about this article: Please login if you want to submit a comment.