HIV rates among American blacks are higher than those in impoverished nations that are part of a $15 billion AIDs programs from the United States, and nearly equal to those of African nations, a new report said on Tuesday.

"More Black Americans are infected with HIV than the total populations of people living with HIV in seven of the 15 countries served by PEPFAR [President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief]," Black AIDS Institute chief executive Phill Wilson said in a statement

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill authorizing $48 billion over the next five years to help treat and prevent AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria around the world. The measure, which will triple funding for these three diseases, is now sent to President George W. Bush, who is expected to sign it into law.

The amount authorized for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the successful U.S. global AIDS program, is $18 billion more than what Bush had requested. It would replace and expand the current $15 billion program started by the President in 2003. That act expires at the end of September

A human trial of a large-scale experimental AIDS vaccine has been cancelled following advice by a top scientist that it was unlikely to give useful results, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) said Thursday.

The vaccine trial, similar to a failed Merck and Co. product, was developed by the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. In a study called PAVE 100, the agency planned to include 2,400 men in the United States

With its approval on Wednesday of a $48 billion bill to fight AIDS around the world, the Senate repealed a 20-year old ban against HIV-positive people from visiting or living in the United States.

The provision to abolish the travel ban was part of the larger measure called President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) that the Senate voted to pass by a vote of 80-16

With its approval on Wednesday of a $48 billion bill to fight AIDS around the world, the Senate repealed a 20-year old ban against HIV-positive people from visiting or living in the United States.

The provision to abolish the travel ban was part of the larger measure called President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) that the Senate voted to pass by a vote of 80-16