More Philanthropic Solutions to HIV/AIDS Epidemic Needed, Columnist Writes

Bill Gates' announcement yesterday that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation will donate $100 million to help fight HIV/AIDS in India is "pretty significant," L.A. Chung writes in her San Jose Mercury News column, but she adds that the global fight against HIV/AIDS "needs more than a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation" and other philanthropic organizations. "Having an impact is going to be the result of millions of individual actions to further prevention and treatment. It will take guts. ... And it will take money," Chung writes. In order to address that issue, the Global Philanthropy Forum is holding the Global AIDS Convening today and tomorrow in San Francisco. Jane Wales, co-founder of the group and president of the World Affairs Council, said, "My hope is that we all find a way to be philanthropic with the issue." According to Chung, "part of the challenge" of fighting HIV/AIDS is to develop the public health infrastructure necessary to deliver treatment, as the ability to deliver effective treatment is still "lacking" in many countries. Wales said, "It's just as important in San Jose or San Francisco as to alleviate the disaster as in Ethiopia -- and those two actions are linked. Not only diseases spread, but solutions will spread" (Chung, San Jose Mercury News, 11/12).