The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Department of State, Foreign Operations and Related Programs on Tuesday approved a $52.1 billion FY 2013 spending bill for state and foreign operations, The Hill's "Global Affairs" blog reports (Pecquet, 5/22). The subcommittee also released a bill summary (5/22). "The bill includes funding for U.S. global health programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department comprising a significant portion of funding for the Global Health Initiative (GHI)," according to the Kaiser Family Foundation's "Policy Tracker."

"The lives of more than 740,000 people in nine African countries were saved between 2004 and 2008 by the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief [PEPFAR]," according to a study conducted by Stanford University School of Medicine researchers and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Wednesday, HealthDay News reports (3/15). "The study is the first to show a decline in all-cause mortality related to the program," a Stanford press release notes, adding, "To measure the impact of the program, [Eran Bendavid, assistant professor of medicine at Stanford,] and his colleagues analyzed health and survival information for more than 1.5 million adults in 27 African countries, including nine countries where PEPFAR has focused its efforts" (Richter, 5/10). According to the study, "an estimated total of 740,914 all-cause adult deaths were averted between 2004 and 2008 in association with PEPFAR," and "[i]n comparison, PEPFAR was associated with an estimated 631,338 HIV-specific deaths averted during the same period," a JAMA press release states, noting that "all-cause adult mortality declined more in African countries in which ... PEPFAR operated more intensively" (5/15).

U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Terence McCulley on Tuesday in Abuja, Nigeria, launched a five-year, $224 million USAID program, titled Strengthening Integrated Delivery of HIV/AIDS Services (SIDHAS), that aims to "increas[e] access to high-quality comprehensive HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis prevention, treatment, care and related services through improved efficiencies in service delivery," the Daily Trust reports (Odeyemi/Odafor, 5/8). 

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria "expects to have an additional $1.6 billion to fund projects in 2012-2014, [the fund's General Manager Gabriel Jaramillo] said on Wednesday, a turnaround from a funding freeze last year," Reuters reports (Miles, 5/9). "The new funds are a result of 'strategic decisions made by the Board, freeing up funds that can be invested in countries where there is the most pressing demand,' a statement by the fund said," according to PlusNews (5/10). "The money includes funds from new donors, from traditional donors who are advancing their payments or increasing contributions and from some donors, such as China, that have offered to support projects in their own country to free up cash for more pressing needs elsewhere, Jaramillo said," Reuters notes (5/9). "This forecast is better than expected, and it comes from the fantastic response we are getting to our transformation," Jaramillo said, adding, "But we need more to get the job done. Countries that implement our grants are saving more and more people, but demand for services is still enormous," according to the statement (5/9).

Speaking at an event where South African Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe urged the mining industry to take greater steps to address tuberculosis (TB) and HIV among its employees, Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu "announced that mining companies, whose HIV, TB and workplace safety policies are being audited by her department, will have to submit their policies as a prerequisite for renewing their mining licenses," PlusNews reports. "According to Shabangu, South Africa's mining sector sees three times as many cases of active TB as the general population," the news service writes.