News Briefs
News Briefs
Global alliance to be launched in Bangkok
At press time, the Global Alliance for TB Drug Development was expected to be officially unveiled at the International Conference for Health Research and Development — also known as the Karolinska conference — on Oct. 11 in Bangkok.
The launch of the Global Alliance wasn’t an official part of the Karolinska agenda but was to have been part of a special presentation, says George Soule, public affairs spokesman for the Rockefeller Foundation in New York City. In Bangkok, public health policy-makers from all over the globe were to have met and talked high-level strategy. To read about this year’s Bangkok conference, visit the Web at www.Conference2000.ch.
Relief act passed for global TB
Recent congressional passage of a $100 million TB and HIV relief act bodes well for foreign aid funding for TB, say political observers. "This global relief act sets up a framework to allow [those who do the actual work of appropriating the money] to spend more on TB," says Joann Carter, head of the advocacy group Results, International. "Passage of the act, like the Sherrod Brown bill, both give tangible evidence of increasing bipartisan and bi-cameral support for money for TB and HIV — and that’s good," she says. The foreign aid "approps" bill in the Senate stands at $51 million for TB; in the House, the sum is up to $60 million. Can anything go wrong? Well, yes, Carter says. "We’ve heard rumors that this might get wrapped into an omnibus bill. In conference committee, where the real money gets locked in, you have more room for details and negotiation. In an omnibus bill, it gets harder to influence the process."
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