Dear President Obama,

While I acknowledge and respect your decision to direct White House efforts toward mother and child health, I am concerned at the amount of resources this repositioning is taking away from tackling the AIDS crisis. With over one million Ugandans having perished to the disease, Uganda is in big trouble.

Not only has the prevalence of AIDS affected the nation's work force, it has consequently dealt a huge blow to Uganda's economy as well as its education systems. Millions of children have also been orphaned due the AIDS-related deaths of their parents.

We simply cannot afford to pull efforts out of the war on AIDS. In some areas, as many people are dying from the disease as are being infected each year. This means that at best, any current attempts to help are simply evening out the situation— and no progress whatsoever is being made.

Please work with your colleagues in the White House and at the United Nations to devise a strategy that addresses the critical nature of this problem. Otherwise, millions more people will die this year.

Thank you for your time.