Obama Admin Adds $65m For HIV/AIDS Prevention

I ran into Phill Wilson who is the co-chair of President Obama's Advisory Commission on HIV/AIDS at Dulles Airport on Wednesday and now I find out what he was doing in town. The Obama Administration has added another $65m in FY 2010 money to fight HIV/AIDS.

From the Office of National AIDS Policy blog:

Today, the Obama Administration is taking new action to prioritize support for Federal HIV/AIDS prevention and care programs. We are sending to the Congress an amendment to the President’s FY 2011 budget request to increase HIV/AIDS funding by $65 million. This is comprised of a requested $35 million increase for HIV prevention in order to continue exciting new HIV prevention activities described below to support the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and a $30 million increase for State AIDS drug assistance programs to respond to the ongoing crisis States are facing in operating these essential programs. These resources come on top of proposed increases for HIV prevention and care at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) that were included in the original budget submission. Ultimately, the Congress will enact a budget that will establish Federal funding levels for the fiscal year that begins on October 1st.

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On the issue of HIV prevention, Secretary Sebelius announced new investments in HIV prevention when we released the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. To ensure that these initiatives continue, we are requesting $35 million in additional funds for next year. In FY 2010, these resources are supporting:

• Comprehensive HIV prevention ($11.6 million): This will fund the implementation and evaluation of effective combinations of behavioral and biomedical prevention interventions in the highest prevalence jurisdictions. These jurisdictions will compete to scale-up effective comprehensive approaches in subsequent years. The funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for this initiative is available onGrants.gov. Be sure to type “CDC-RFA-PS10-10181” as the Funding Opportunity Number to download the FOA.
• Increased testing and linkage to care ($4.4 million): Building on CDC’s new Expanded Testing Initiative, these funds will ensure that resources are provided to support targeted testing and linkage services for high prevalence communities, including Black, Latino, injection drug using (IDU), and gay male communities.
• Expanded HIV surveillance ($5.5 million): This will support work with jurisdictions to ensure that all jurisdictions report CD4 cell counts and viral loads to the public health surveillance system, enable jurisdictions to estimate community viral load, and take other steps to improve the surveillance system.
• Consultation, evaluation, technical support and annual MSM survey ($6.5 million): These resources will support evaluation and monitoring, assisting with developing and implementing new activities and conducting an annual internet survey for men who have sex with men (MSM) to collect behavioral, HIV testing, and other information.
• HIV, viral hepatitis, STD prevention and sexual health promotion with Tribal Communities ($1 million): CDC will partner with the Indian Health Service (IHS) to work with Tribal communities on prevention and health promotion.

These activities reflect a new direction that we believe will have a greater impact at lowering the number of new HIV infections in the United States.