http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/02/politics/02CND-AIDS.html?ei=5070&en=b8300717b85fda0c&ex=1059537600&pagewanted=print&position=

Bush Names Coordinator for Global AIDS Policy

By KIRK SEMPLE

ive days before traveling to Africa, the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic, President Bush today named a former pharmaceutical company executive to coordinate the administration's global AIDS policy.

Randall Tobias, 61, who was chairman and chief executive officer of Eli Lilly & Company, will coordinate President Bush's $15 billion initiative to fight AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean, two regions of the world that have been hardest hit by disease.

"Millions of lives depend on the success of this effort, and we are determined to succeed," Mr. Bush said during a White House ceremony announcing the appointment, which needs to be confirmed by the Senate.

The announcement came six weeks after Congress gave final approval to the president's AIDS initiative. The bill gives the federal government the authority to triple spending on the global AIDS fight during the next five years.

The program focuses on preventing and treating AIDS in 12 African nations and two Caribbean nations, and includes ambitious drug-delivery and medical-care networks stretching into the most remote regions of the those countries — "even by motorcycle or bicycle," the president said today.

According to the United Nations AIDS agency, 42 million people are infected with H.I.V. worldwide, 29.4 million of them in sub-Saharan Africa and 440,000 in the Caribbean.

"AIDS has already killed almost 20 million people in sub-Saharan Africa, where it is the No. 1 cause of death," Mr. Tobias said at the White House ceremony today. "And, without intervention, it will claim the lives of one quarter of the population in the next decade."

He added: "I look forward to listening to and learning from the leaders and the people of the nations who are most impacted by this extraordinary crisis, for, in the end, they are what this is all about."

Mr. Tobias retired in 1998 from Lilly, one of the nation's largest drug manufacturers. Before that he was vice chairman of AT&T. He has also been a significant contributor to the Republican Party.

Despite his nomination to such a high-profile post, Mr. Tobias remains something of a mystery among some international individuals and organizations promoting access to effective and affordable medicines to fight AIDS and other diseases in developing countries.

"We don't know much about Tobias, but we welcome the fact that we now have a person in charge of this initiative," said Jon Liden, spokesman for the Geneva-based Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. "In the sense that he's a long-term manager and professional, it's very good news."

Mr. Bush has said Global Fund will be a primary recipient of money funneled through the White House global AIDS initiative.

James Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, an advocacy group in Washington, said Mr. Tobias's "test" would be how he handled the purchase of drugs. "We're concerned that the procurement of medicines will become a nontransparent, noncompetitive process," said Mr. Love, who has lobbied internationally for wider access to medicine.

In his comments today, Mr. Bush called Mr. Tobias "a superb leader who knows a great deal about life-saving medicines and who knows how to get results."

If confirmed, Mr. Tobias will report to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and will coordinate the administration's AIDS programs for all government departments and agencies, Mr. Bush said.

The president's global AIDS initiative concentrates in Africa on Botswana, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, and in the Caribbean on Guyana and Haiti.

Those 14 countries account for nearly 20 million H.I.V.-infected people, the White House said in a statement.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company