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Remarks by Andrew S. Natsios
Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development

HIV/AIDS

Haiti
July 21, 2003

[As prepared]

Thank you very much. It is an honor and privilege to be here today.

We are here to announce a major new HIV/AIDS initiative. It builds on the long years of friendship and cooperation between the American and Haitian people, our experience together treating HIV/AIDS patients, and President Bush's deep, personal commitment to fighting this devastating disease.

We all know the terrible costs that HIV/AIDS has imposed on Haitian life.

Between four and six thousand Haitian children are born with the virus every year. Now, we have a way to stop that, a program that will prevent most of Haiti's HIV-positive mothers from passing the disease on to their children during childbirth.

Through President Bush's Mother-To-Child Transmission Initiative, the United States is contributing $4 million dollars to this effort here in Haiti.

That fact that USAID is working with the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on this new Mother-to-Child initiative is a measure of the importance the people and government of the United States place on winning the fight against HIV/AIDS. So I am pleased that Deputy Secretary Allen is here to discuss their plans and activities.

The Mother-to-Child Transmission prevention program we are launching today owes much to GHESKIO and the pioneering work of its founder, Dr. Bill Pape. The quality of their efforts and the professionalism of their staff have given GHESKIO an understanding of Haiti's HIV/AIDS crisis no other organization can equal.

GHESKIO and Partners in Health have tested this program in pilot projects and helped us assemble an extraordinary team of Haitian and American organizations, drawn from both the public and private sector.

Within a year, most of Haiti's existing HIV/AIDS counseling and testing centers should be equipped with Mother-to-Child Transmission prevention services. Through Family Health International, five new faith-based centers that offer Mother-to-Child prevention services will be opened. Through the Haitian Ministry of Health 48 voluntary counseling and testing centers will have these new services, too. Management Sciences for Health will strengthen drug delivery systems, purchase medicine and supplies for some two dozen centers, and train Ministry of Health staff. And Johns Hopkins University will train new community-based volunteers in HIV/AIDS counseling and testing techniques.

USAID has been working in Haiti on HIV/AIDS prevention and care for several years. Now we have a unique opportunity to expand these operations significantly. The Mother-to-Child Transmission prevention initiative will bring a new services and capabilities to 70 clinics and hospitals throughout Haiti. And it will ensure new levels of care and treatment for the rural and isolated regions of the country as well as most cities and towns.

Thanks to this initiative, we expect to test about 850,000 expectant mothers for the virus over the next five years and to provide anti-retroviral treatments for the approximately 25,000 of them who are HIV-positive. Thousands of children will be born virus-free as a result.

Saving these children is the cause that brings us here today. It is President Bush's cause. It is USAID's cause. And it is the cause that unites this powerful partnership of Haitian and American organizations.

So I am honored to be here today, to have a chance to learn more about this unique country, and to recognize the hard work that so many people are doing here - from the local USAID staff; to our colleagues at the Centers for Disease Control and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; to the Haitian Ministry of Public Health; to Partner for Health and GHESKIO, whose pilot programs we are building on today; to our other partners; and to the doctors and nurses and technicians who work every day to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Like you all, I look forward to the day when HIV/AIDS has been conquered. But until that day comes, let me assure you the United States will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Haitian people in their fight to contain it. Thank you.

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