War on AIDS needs food

May 4 2005

The five billion dollars earmarked by U.S. President George W. Bush to fight HIV/AIDS could be wasted if his administration does not increase food aid resources, asserted the head of a leading development organization.

Speaking at the Export Food Aid conference in Kansas City, run by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), Lelei LeLaulu, President of Counterpart International, said a person living with AIDS "has to eat twice -- once for themselves and once for the disease." If there was insufficient nutrition, he said, the person could not strengthen their immune system sufficiently for the drugs to work properly.

"The tragic irony of food shortage," said LeLaulu, "is new mothers in the poorer countries are being treated for AIDS then sent home with just a week's supply of milk. Once the milk supply runs out, they are faced with the terrible prospect of breast feeding, and thereby transmitting the disease to their new born child."

Meanwhile, he lamented, there were "small mountains of dried milk" stored by the Department of Agriculture a short drive from the conference site in downtown Kansas City.

The 17 development agencies of the Coalition for Food Aid called on the U.S. Congress and President Bush to increase the level of food aid to US $2 billion dollars.

Well-implemented food aid, declared the coalition of America's leading humanitarian agencies, has to accompany any successful HIV/AIDS initiative. The United Nations World Food Programme, said LeLaulu, is calling for a global outlay of US $3.8 billion of emergency food aid this year.

The Coalition for Food Aid includes CARE, Counterpart International, Catholic Relief Services, Save The Children, ACDI/VOCA, AfriCare, ADRA, Mercy Corps and World Vision.