Indeed, the global AIDS epidemic might fairly be described as a disease of Biblical proportions. The statistics on the global AIDS crisis, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, are stunning. At the Committee's March hearing, Mary Fisher, the founder of the Family AIDS Network who eloquently addressed the Republican Convention in 1992, testified about her recent trip to Africa. Acres of orphans - orphans raising orphans, because there is no one else left to do it. Tough children take to the streets.
Weak children die of starvation.
Many just sit, docile and sick, a vast, human ocean of orphans, mostly infected and doomed. While Africa is the current epicenter of the disease, it is moving toward Asia and nothing would be a greater mistake than to think that oceans are boundaries capable of containing the spread of diseases of this nature. Statistics from Uganda and Senegal in Africa, and from Thailand in Asia, demonstrate the positive impact of strong prevention programs. Encouragingly, those strategies can be applied to other countries as well. The innovative approach outlined in the World Bank AIDS Marshall Plan Trust Fund Act, H.R. 3519, holds out the promise of catalyzing a much stronger global response to the AIDS epidemic.