2020-08-04 18:00
Right now, COVID-19 is wreaking havoc on access to HIV treatment and prevention across the continent. In a matter of days, African countries will reach a grim milestone: the number of COVID-19 cases will surge past 1 million. Many clinics where adults and children get lifesaving HIV treatment have simply shuttered. Medicine supply chains have been disrupted, resulting in life-threatening shortages of drugs.
Activism is needed now to help ensure people living with HIV, tuberculosis and malaria in the world’s poorest countries do not face even greater suffering and death from the dual pandemics of COVID-19 and HIV. Join Health Gap‘s emergency activist organizing call on Tuesday, August 4th at 6PM EST.
Right now, Congress is negotiating an emergency COVID-19 spending package. We need to pressure them to fully fund an emergency response that will mitigate harm from COVID-19 to countries facing the highest burdens of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria.
Time is running out. in less than 7 days, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria will run out of money in its COVID-19 Emergency Response Mechanism, a program established to help countries respond to COVID-19 with testing, case finding and treatment while continuing to scale up AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs. And the US bilateral AIDS program, PEPFAR, is reporting destabilization of their treatment and prevention programs.
In order to stop millions of preventable deaths and avoid massive suffering from COVID-19 as well as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, we need to demand $4 billion for The Global Fund and $1.4 billion for PEPFAR in the COVID-19 emergency supplemental bill before Congress now.