In his State of the Union Address last night, President Bush called an Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.
Mr. Bush is proposing to spend $15 billion dollars over five years, including "nearly $10 billion in new money." Currently, the US spends about $1 billion dollars annualy to combat HIV/AIDS. The emphasis of the new spending would be on Africa - location of most of the HIV/AIDS cases and deaths - and the Caribbean.
Of the new spending, about $1 billion dollars would go to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The US has contributed $500 million dollars already to the Global Fund. However, the Fund's director, Richard Feachem, says the Fund needs up to $3 or 4 billion dollars over the next two years.