PEPFAR SEEKS $5.4 BILLION IN FUNDS FOR FISCAL 2008

U.S. President Bush has asked Congress to approve $5.4 billion for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) for fiscal 2008, the last year of the five-year effort to fight HIV/AIDS around the world, the Department of State announced.

One of the goals of PEPFAR, launched in 2003, is to care for and treat 10 million people affected by HIV/AIDS. The program focuses on 15 countries, the majority of which are in Africa. Nearly 30 million people in Africa have HIV.

If the funding is approved, the PEPFAR program would be on track to exceed the original $15 billion pledge and bring to $18.3 billion the amount of money the U.S. has invested in fighting HIV, the government said.

The program primarily invests its resources in partnerships with host nations and international organizations such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, according to Ambassador Mark Dybul, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator.

As of September 2006, the number of people receiving HIV treatment through PEPFAR's bilateral partnerships was 987,100, Dybul said. The program's major goal for HIV treatment is increasing the availability of safe, effective, low-cost, generic antiretroviral drugs.