Bush seeks added $30b in AIDS fight

For global effort over five years

December 01, 2007|Jennifer Loven, Associated Press

MOUNT AIRY, Md. - President Bush yesterday urged Congress to approve an additional $30 billion for the global fight against AIDS over the next five years, and announced that he would visit Africa early next year to further highlight the need and his administration's efforts.

"We dedicate ourselves to a great purpose: We will turn the tide against HIV/AIDS - once and for all," Bush said.

Bush chose the gymnasium at Calvary United Methodist Church to make his remarks. The church supports a Christian group home and school in Namibia for children orphaned by the disease. He met with representatives from churches and other religious groups fighting AIDS, part of his attempt to highlight his belief that faith-based organizations are the best vehicles for such work.

The number of people in sub-Saharan Africa receiving treatment for AIDS has gone from 50,000 five years ago to nearly 1.4 million now, Bush said. In May, he asked Congress to double the $15 billion that the United States committed over the program's first five years to therapy, testing, and counseling.

In a separate development, the Washington Post reported in today's editions that new government estimates of the number of Americans who become infected with the AIDS virus each year are 50 percent higher than previously believed.

For more than a decade, epidemiologists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have pegged the number of new HIV infections each year at 40,000.

They now believe it is between 55,000 and 60,000, the Post said, citing sources familiar with research on a new method of testing blood.

READER COMMENTS »

View reader comments » Comment on this story »