On April 2, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a five-year reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Washington Post reports (washingtonpost.com, 4/3). According to the Post, a similar version of the bill is pending in the Senate.
The House bill would allocate $50 billion over the next five years to go toward HIV treatment and prevention efforts in the Caribbean, Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. During his final State of the Union address in January, President Bush proposed $30 billion for the program.
Under the new bill, approximately $9 billion of the funding would go toward fighting tuberculosis and malaria. Also, the bill would remove a mandate that a third of funding be used for abstinence-until-marriage programming. However, abstinence and sexual faithfulness would remain key strategies in prevention efforts.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) said the bill “strengthens our national security” because AIDS is “destabilizing governments and societies” in entire regions around the world.
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