AIDS UPDATE: John Donnelly, in the Boston Globe, finds some good news:

Today, the change for the better is astonishing: Idoko now treats nearly 6,000 HIV-positive patients. He has expanded his clinic three times in five years, and his waiting room once again is too crowded. “Now, we are eyeing an abandoned building nearby,” he said last week, chuckling.

The major reason for Idoko’s success is the Bush administration’s AIDS program, which in the last three years has sent billions of dollars to Africa and helped save the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. When I moved to Africa three years ago, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, was just getting off the ground. As I return to Washington this month, the $15 billion program is just hitting its stride, and many Africans believe it has become the single most effective initiative in fighting the deadly scourge.

“The greatest impact in HIV prevention and treatment in Africa is PEPFAR-there’s nothing that compares,” Idoko said.

Only you wouldn’t know it in America-or Canada, or Europe, for that matter-given the tenor of the AIDS debate in Washington and the nature of the international media coverage.

Read the whole thing. (Via Miss Kelly).