Obama pledges grants for AIDS, HIV care and research

In honor of World AIDS Day, U.S. President Obama has pledged additional funding to assist in both the fight against AIDS and a cure for HIV.

Obama announced on Monday that the U.S. would assist in the global problem in two ways. A new project seeking a cure for HIV will receive $100 million in funding, and will be funnelled through the National Institutes of Health. The goal is to prompt a "new generation of therapies" for the disease, and find a new way to "put HIV into long-term remission without requiring lifelong therapies -- or, better yet, eliminate it completely."

The Obama administration will also provide up to $5 billion as part of an international effort to combat the spread of AIDS and provide treatment to its sufferers. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria will be granted extra resources and cash over the next three years, but only if international donors also cough up $10 billion between them.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that since the beginning of the epidemic, almost 70 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and about 35 million people have died of AIDS. Globally, the agency estimates that 34 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2011, roughly 0.8 percent of adults aged 15-49 years worldwide. 

Via: The Wire

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com