Speeches

Twinning Project Launch

Address by Dr. Roy L. Austin
U.S. Ambassador to Trinidad & Tobago
Remarks for the Twinning Project Launch
Hilton Hotel
November 12, 2003

Good evening! I am pleased to welcome you to the launch of a U.S./Caribbean Twinning Project. More specifically, I understand that the twinning is between Brooklyn’s Lutheran Medical Center (LMC) and several Caribbean partners, including Trinidad’s Medical Research Foundation. The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) which administers the largest public AIDS care and treatment program in the world, the Ryan White Care Act. HRSA is now working to share the lessons learned from this experience with countries throughout the world.

This twinning project is part of an unprecedented commitment that the U.S. Government has made to global HIV/AIDS control. Under the Bush administration, global AIDS control is a foreign policy priority. This attention is manifest in several ways, including the White House initiative on HIV/AIDS, which provides $5 billion in bilateral U.S. support over 5 years to 14 African and Caribbean countries. Also included is U.S. support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, chaired by Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. The U.S. provides the largest contribution of any individual country to this Fund; and you may be aware that two regional proposals and six from individual Caribbean countries were recently funded by the Fund. Additionally, U.S. support for international HIV/AIDS control continues alongside the White House initiative and the Global Fund.

This twinning project, our focus this evening, was conceived three years ago when Secretary Thompson visited the Lutheran Medical Center’s Caribbean American Family Health Center in Brooklyn, New York. There, he saw the remarkable service provided to people hailing from many Caribbean countries. This experience stimulated a vision of partnerships in which clinical centers in the U.S. and those in the Caribbean could be brought together for their mutual benefit. This dream now becomes a reality here in Trinidad and Tobago.

There are other important entities involved in this partnership to provide care and support services to persons living with HIV/AIDS. They include the Trinidad and Tobago Ministry of Health, some of whose professionals will enjoy training in Brooklyn; the Caribbean Epidemiology Centre (CAREC); and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) regional office on HIV/AIDS located here in Trinidad. In sum, the collaborative effort will bring together many capable partners here in Trinidad and Tobago, and thereby optimize capacity and quality of care and treatment.

Please join me in congratulating the partners represented here this evening for making this twinning project a reality. Also, let us offer our full support to ensure that the mutual assistance resulting from the collaboration will increase treatment opportunities for people here in Trinidad and Tobago who need and deserve high quality care for HIV infection. I wish the twinning project the greatest success here and everywhere.

Thank you!