New York, December 03 (News-Light.com) – On Monday, up to $5 billion in US money over the three years to the pre-eminent global program to combat AIDS has been pledged by President Obama. He has also laid a condition that he will donate the money if the rest of the international community pitches in $10 billion.
Obama announced the pledge to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as the White House marked World AIDS Day. Donor communities were getting ready to begin meetings in Washington on Monday night to discuss the three-year replenishment cycle of the fund.
The 1-to-2 funding ratio is set by Congress, and Obama had already marked $1.65 billion for the Global Fund in his 2014 budget. But activists, including South Africa’s Desmond Tutu, had been pushing Obama to make clear ahead of the conference that the United States stood ready to donate up to $5 billion to the fund for the next cycle.
Obama also announced that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will invest $100 million in re-prioritized funding over the next three years to launch an HIV cure initiative.
Obama was also facing calls by a bipartisan group of 40 lawmakers to use the conference and the 25th commemoration of World AIDS Day to announce a new goal for the US government to double its support of treatment through anti-retroviral drugs by the end of his presidency through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The program is credited with providing millions of Africans with anti-retroviral drugs since its establishment and led to 1 million babies globally being born HIV-free.