«The United States Government has sabotaged efforts to provide treatment to millions of people living with HIV/AIDS around the world by forcing the Global Fund to postpone a new round of grant proposals», said Asia Russell, director of International Affairs of Health GAP from Tanzania where she is attending the Global Fund meeting. «Less than two weeks before World AIDS Day, the Bush Administration’s full-bore assault on the premier multilateral vehicle of hope for people with AIDS is a clear sign of how a go-it-alone President will choose ideology over compassion in his second term.»

By delaying the fifth round of funding, members of the Global Fund Board, led by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson, have turned their backs on promises made to provide funding to fight HIV/AIDS and on the thousands of people who will die before another round is announced. The Global Fund was launched by the United Nations in 2001 in response to demands from activists that billions of dollars be made available for a mechanism to provide HIV/AIDS treatment.

«Today’s action by Secretary Thompson is yet another example of the U.S.’s effort to undermine the effectiveness of the Global Fund. The government has consistently failed to meet its fair share commitment to the global effort, preferring instead to ’go-it-alone’ with the universally criticized, unilateral President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Beyond that, the former pharmaceutical company head charged with leading the U.S. global AIDS strategy has threatened to withhold funding that has already been committed by the United States to the Global Fund this year. The United States, rather than taking the lead among donor nations to the Global Fund, has led the way in trying to destroy the Fund», Russell concluded.

The Bush Administration’s proposed commitment to the Global Fund for FY 2005 is a mere $200 million. The level of commitment requested by the United Nations and other world organizations and leaders as well as global activists is one-third of the total requirement for the Fund of $3.5 billion.