Analysis: Bush urges AIDS relief expansion

WASHINGTON, May 30 (UPI) -- President Bush on Wednesday called for a record $30 billion in spending to fight AIDS, an expansion he said would more than double the number of patients receiving drug treatment under U.S. programs in poor countries.

The spending would ostensibly double the president's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a five-year, $15 billion program started in 2003. The plan funds AIDS prevention and treatment in 15 poor countries hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic, mostly in Africa. The five-year plan runs out at the end of next year and will have to be reauthorized by Congress.

"This investment has yielded the best possible return: saved lives," the president said in remarks in the White House Rose Garden.

The State Department estimates 1.1 million people in South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda and other countries are receiving antiretroviral treatment under the plan. The White House said the increased funding would expand treatment to 2.5 million additional people and prevent HIV infection in an estimated 12 million persons.

The plan enjoys bipartisan support in Congress. But it remains unclear what programs Congress would cut to find an addition $15 billion, and the president on Wednesday made no suggestions in that regard.

Parts of the program, particularly its focus on abstinence along with condom use, remain controversial and could face challenges from lawmakers.

"We'll be working with Congress on those issues," Ambassador Mark Dybul, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator, said in a telephone interview.

The White House also has not said whether it intends to use the additional money to increase the number of countries covered under the emergency plan in addition to expanding programs within the 15 countries covered now.

"The policy on expansion will be developed as we go," Michael Leavitt, the secretary of health and human services, said in an interview.

The president urged Congress to move quickly on a bill reauthorizing the program, though lawmakers won't decide on actual funding levels until next year. Reauthorizing the bill this year would allow President Bush to influence the program for the next five years, after he's already left office.

The program was funded well below a $3 billion annual average for its first few years. The White House requested $5.5 billion for the program next year in order to reach the $15 billion in total funding by 2008.

The Global AIDS Alliance, an activist group, questioned the president's claim that the proposed expansion would actually double U.S. AIDS funding. David Bryden, a spokesman for the group, argued that the proposal does not represent a large increase over current funding levels.

"That's a little bit of the subterfuge the president is using here," Bryden said. "It sounds like a plateau, not a real step up."

Dybul said the plan expansion would support continued care for millions already using U.S. funding but would also allow expansion of existing programs. "Math is math. It's a doubling," he said.

HIV/AIDS has killed an estimated 25 million people since 1981, mostly in Africa. An additional 40 million people are infected with HIV, according to UNAIDS. Two-thirds of the nearly 3 million people who died of AIDS worldwide in 2006 lived in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the organization.