AIDS diplomat urges
vigilance in global battle

He says Hawaii plays a vital role
in reaching Pacific Rim nations

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By Helen Altonn
haltonn@starbulletin.com

The HIV-AIDS epidemic worldwide is a "foreign policy imperative" that requires intensive action by leaders throughout society to save lives, says Dr. Jack C. Chow, Secretary of State Colin Powell's special representative for the disease.

Nominated by President Bush as the nation's diplomat for HIV/AIDS with rank of ambassador, Chow attended meetings here last week to emphasize the global health crisis.

Hawaii, with its ethnic diversity, can play an important role in reaching Pacific Rim nations with HIV-AIDS education and prevention, he said. "It's not only the big populous nations we care about. It's these island nations, where because of demographics and increased trade ... the trajectory of AIDS could spike very rapidly."

Chow discussed the disease's rapid spread in an interview and in a speech at the Confronting HIV/AIDS conference Friday at the Hawaii Prince Hotel in Waikiki. Sponsors were the Center on the Family, the state Health Department, Hawaii Community Foundation and HMSA.

He and an aide arrived Tuesday after meeting with health and government leaders in Thailand, Burma and China and attending an international HIV/AIDS conference in Barcelona, Spain.

They were to leave today after the visit, arranged by Sylvia Yuen, University of Hawaii Center on the Family director. Chow and Yuen serve on the board of the National Asia-Pacific Center on Aging.

The HIV-AIDS pandemic, which is raging in Sub-Sahara Africa, is "accelerating at frightening speed," Chow said.

Left alone, it will explode across China, India, Russia, Nigeria, Ethiopia and other countries, he said. "At the end of the decade we could easily see 100 million people (up from 40 million) living with the virus."

The disease "is no longer solely originating from so-called high-risk populations," but is rapidly growing among women and entering the general population, he pointed out.

It's a threat domestically as well as internationally because it knows no boundaries, he said, stressing the need to "mobilize resources and spur political commitment throughout the world."

Chow, also assistant secretary of state for health and science, said he's passionate about his new role aimed at working with other nations to halt the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

He said he was heartened to find that foreign leaders are beginning to see AIDS "as a matter of public safety and national security." It is so serious that currency markets are taking the disease into account, he said.

The plight of southern Africa, where 45 million children could become AIDS orphans, is "a moral outrage that infiltrates, permeates and devastates every society," Chow said.

He said he told foreign leaders the United States will provide expertise and other assistance to help them fight the virus, but they must take the lead in education and prevention efforts.

"China will be essential in a campaign to avert AIDS," he said, noting conferees in Barcelona said the country is "vulnerable to a titanic explosion of the disease."

Chow said the Bush administration helped to establish a global fund based in Switzerland to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria that has $2 billion worth of pledges, with the United States committing $1 billion.

He said the administration is concerned about HIV's continued rise in the U.S. and public opinion, reflected by a recent poll, that said three-fourths of Americans feel the United States has done enough on global AIDS. They see it largely as an African problem, he said.

"We're saying, and the word out of Barcelona as well as our own government assessment, is the pandemic will begin to infiltrate and encroach upon other vulnerable regions ... so it's not just an African issue. It's truly a global challenge. ...

"With 40 million people now living with the virus worldwide and tens of millions at risk for acquiring the virus, and with hundreds of millions of people living in fear of the virus, the billions of people who comprise the world community must be made aware and be willing to take action, either individually or through government and other forms of collective action."