On Monday, a spokesperson for the US Department of Health and Human Services said the agency has awarded a five-year, $1.6 million grant to a University of South Alabama (USA) pediatric HIV program. David Bowman said the USA Children's and Women's Hospital obtained the money through a competitive grant process.

The program has 10 full- or part-time employees and operates out of USA's Springhill Campus. Though its focus is treating children with HIV, the program extends services to infected parents as well. It also addresses many of patients' non-medical needs, offering support groups, mental health care, and substance abuse treatment. "Our case managers look for housing. We help them pay their power bills," said Dr. Mary Mancao, a pediatric infectious-disease specialist at the hospital. "We try to make [the program] a one-stop shop."

Mancao said she first requested the grant six years ago at a time when many of the HIV-positive children in the community were not receiving treatment. "Nobody wanted to take care of these kids. I knew we could do it, and that's when I decided to start writing that grant," she said.

The program received $250,000 in 2001, and the annual award has increased to the current $332,356.

The grant will help provide medical, psychological, and personal care to patients, said Mancao. "It's not just a medical disease," she said. "It's a social disease."

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