Obama Prepared to Release New Plan for AIDS/HIV

President Obama will announce a new AIDS/HIV plan at a press conference tomorrow. A report with Obama’s objectives was leaked to the media on Monday:  to reduce the number of new HIV cases by 25 percent within five years, to increase from 65 to 85 the percentage of newly diagnosed patients who seek clinical care within three months, to improve the federal government’s national response, and to increase from 79 to 90 the percentage of patients who are aware they have AIDS/HIV.

Also highlighted among the priorities of the plan were recommendations to increase federal funding for states with the highest “burden of disease” and to devote more resources to gay and bisexual men (who account for more than half of all news cases each year) and African Americans, who account for 46 percent of AIDS/HIV patients. A new person becomes infected every nine and a half minutes.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated in 2006 that 1.1 million Americans live with AIDS/HIV. About 56,000 people in the U.S. become infected each year. If the transmission rate remains at its current level, the reports states, the number of new infections would increase to 75,000 per year by 2020, and the number of people living with AIDS/HIV will increase to 1.5 million.

Critics of the report claim that there is no new commitment for additional federal funding. The federal government currently allocates $19 billion a year for domestic AIDS programs. The report says the administration will redirect monies to areas that display the greatest need, and to population groups who are at the greatest risk.

The Obama administration spent 15 months to devise the plan – the first of its kind for AIDS/HIV in the U.S. – speaking with thousands of people including patients, administrators, activists, and researchers.

Because HIV is treatable, health officials say, public attention paid to the epidemic has waned and people perceive that HIV is no longer a public health emergency. The National Minority AIDS Council states, however, that the disease is hitting certain communities of color worse than ever before.

The cost for AIDS/HIV medications are often more than $12,000 per year, and there are more than 2,000 U.S. residents on a waiting list for medications. The Department of Health and Human Services on July 8 announced that it is providing $25 million to states to help pay for the drug treatments.

Obama’s plan will be revealed in time for the biennial International AIDS Conference, which starts July 18 in Vienna.