U.S President Barrack Obama has pledged $5 billion for the HIV/AIDS global program funds on Monday.
On Sunday, 40 lawmakers and some activists have urged Obama to set his new goal for the program as his legacy before his administration ends. They wrote a letter to him requesting to increase the funds to $12 billion. Unfortunately, Obama was willing to give only $5 billion under a certain condition.
According to USA Today, Obama has promised to allot $5 billion in the next three years just to fund the HIV/AIDS global program if the international community can generate an additional $10 billion.
As the White House marks World AIDS day, Obama has announced that the funds will not only focus on the AIDS program, but to Malaria and Tuberculosis programs as well.
He also announced that that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) will invest $100 million in re-prioritized funding over the next three years to start an HIV cure program.
HIV, or Human Immunodeficiency Virus, is a lentivirus that causes Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (AIDS), a condition that weakens the immune system, thus, making the infected person highly at risk to life-threatening opportunistic infections.
Numerous studies to combat HIV and AIDS have been launched since decades ago but none succeeded until recently where several individuals appear to have been treated of HIV through aggressive therapy. However, the White House said that the methods applied “are too toxic or premature to apply beyond the research setting,” but still, they believe that the research they are funding could offer substantial clues to explore new possible cures.
Obama has also announced that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which provides millions of Africans with anti-retroviral drugs that led to babies being born from infected parents, HIV-free, has now cured 6.7 million people – going beyond its 6 million target, but the president won’t set another target until next year.
