Questions Raised Over Cost of, Funding for Obama Administration's AIDS Blueprint

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday announced the Obama administration's "President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) Blueprint: Creating an AIDS-free Generation" (.pdf), which calls for a combination of prevention strategies including widespread treatment, "male circumcision, condom distribution and stopping transmission from mother to child," NPR's "Shots" blog reports. The blog notes the document does not describe the cost of the programs (Knox/Doucleff, 11/29). "[T]he global drive for austerity in developed economies, combined with sharp arguments about U.S. government spending, points to potential difficulties" in allocating funding to HIV/AIDS programs, the Daily Beast writes (Zeitlin, 12/1). U.S. "[f]unding for bilateral AIDS was $5.082 billion in fiscal 2012, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the government is currently operating on a continuing resolution based on that amount as the fiscal 2013 budget continues to be debated," the Wall Street Journal reports, adding, "Sequestration, should that occur, would mean an [across-the-board discretionary] 8.2 percent cut" (McKay, 11/30).

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