EMERGENCY PLAN FOR AIDS RELIEF
WHEREAS, The United States Conference of Mayors has demonstrated its commitment to
ending the HIV/AIDS pandemic through many domestic projects, including an ongoing grant
program in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that has since 1985
distributed more than $12.6 million in AIDS prevention grants; and
WHEREAS, the President of the United States has made fighting AIDS a priority of our nation's
foreign policy; and
WHEREAS, the HIV/AIDS pandemic has killed at least 20 million of the more than 60 million
people it has infected thus far, leaving 14 million orphans worldwide; and
WHEREAS, today, on the continent of Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus -
including three million children under the age of 15; and
WHEREAS, recent developments such as greatly simplified ARV treatment regimens and steep
declines in the prices of advanced antiretroviral (ARV) drugs - from more than $12,000 to under
$300 per year - have now made widespread therapy for HIV possible; and
WHEREAS, the number of people actually receiving ARV treatment remains horribly low despite
these therapy advances; in Africa, where 29.4 million people are infected with HIV, and 4 million
HIV-infected people have a sufficiently advanced stage of the disease to warrant ARV treatment,
only 50,000 are receiving this medication; and
WHEREAS, in January, 2003, the President of the United States announced the Emergency Plan
for AIDS Relief and asked the House and the Senate to enact legislation to implement this new
initiative; and
WHEREAS, the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief intends to prevent 7 million new infections,
treat 2 million HIV-infected people, and care for 10 million HIV-infected individuals and AIDS
orphans; and
WHEREAS, the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief will focus a significant amount of these
resources on the most afflicted countries in Africa and the Caribbean, including Botswana, Cote
d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa,
Tanzania, Uganda, and Zambia, which have among the highest incidence of HIV infection and
account for nearly 20 million HIV-infected men, women and children - almost 70 percent of the
total in all of Africa and the Caribbean; and
WHEREAS, the President signed the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and
Malaria Act of 2003 into law on May 27, 2003 authorizing $15 billion to fight AIDS abroad over
the next five years, beginning with $2 billion in 2004,
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that The U.S. Conference of Mayors commends the
Bush Administration for its commitment to combat HIV/AIDS abroad and urges other donor
nations, corporations, non-governmental organizations and individuals to follow the U.S.
leadership by moving forward with the speed and seriousness this crisis requires to commit
significant new financial resources to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria
and to the global fight against HIV/AIDS; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that The U.S. Conference of Mayors urges the international
mayors gathered here in Denver for this International Conference of Mayors to bring this
resolution to the attention of their national governments and to seek their support for this effort.
©2003 U.S. Conference of Mayors 
