Bush to Announce Three-Year AIDS Spending Initiative; $500 Million Set for Global Push to Fight Transmission to Infants

President Bush will announce an initiative today to spend $500 million over three years in fighting the global AIDS pandemic, with an emphasis on preventing transmission of the disease from mothers to infants, administration sources said Tuesday. The proposed spending includes $200 million recently approved by Congress for the current fiscal year.

The announcement comes amid rapidly mounting pressure on Capitol Hill for the United States to take a much more active and generous role in efforts to halt the spread of AIDS and treat people infected with HIV. The move comes as Bush prepares to head next week to Canada for the annual summit of the Group of Eight leading nations, where a major focus will be aid to Africa.

Preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection is especially popular among conservatives. The rate of infection among babies born to HIV-positive mothers can be cut roughly in half through treatment with the relatively inexpensive drug nevirapine. This was the primary focus of a bill to provide $500 million in emergency spending in the current fiscal year, co-sponsored by Republican Sens. Jesse Helms (N.C.) and Bill Frist (Tenn.) as well as Democratic lawmakers including Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.).

AIDS activists were deeply disappointed when Frist, a doctor who has worked in AIDS clinics in Africa, bowed to White House pressure early this month to pare the $500 million to $200 million for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, equal to the figure in parallel House legislation. Frist said at the time that the administration would be offering its own initiative of comparable magnitude -- evidently a reference to the announcement Bush will be making today.

It is unclear how Bush's proposal will affect broader efforts to boost dramatically global spending on AIDS, including treatment of HIV-infected people with drugs that are much more expensive than nevirapine. Kerry, Frist and others are backing a bill that would authorize $4.5 billion in spending on global AIDS over the two fiscal years starting Oct. 1.

Back to other CDC news for June 19, 2002

Previous Updates