To help average Americans do something to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, several foundations and travel companies, in cooperation with the United Nations, are starting a campaign to allow travelers to donate $2 every time they pay for a flight, a rental car or a hotel room.
The campaign, called MassiveGood, is asking users of various travel Web sites, including Travelocity, to click a box to donate an extra $2 when they pay.
The management consultants McKinsey & Company estimated that the plan could bring in $600 million to $1 billion a year within four years, said Dr. Jorge Bermudez, executive secretary of Unitaid, the international charity that is to receive the donations.
Unitaid, founded in 2006, receives about $350 million a year through small taxes on airline tickets in France, Chile and South Korea, a carbon tax in Norway and donations from Britain and Brazil. It then channels the money through other groups — including Unicef, the William J. Clinton Foundation and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria — to pay for drugs for children with AIDS, drugs for adults with drug-resistant AIDS or tuberculosis, and mosquito nets to prevent malaria.
The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-Moon, and former President Bill Clinton last week announced the plan, which has been endorsed by several European governments. The United States government does not contribute to Unitaid, but the AIDS and malaria programs started by the Bush administration give money to many of the same recipients.
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