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

The U.S. Senate passed a crucial bill on Wednesday that will triple funding for AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria around the world. Backed by President Bush, the plan received a 80-to-16 vote to authorize $48 billion over the next five years.

The amount authorized 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

Drug maker Roche Holding AG has announced it will stop ongoing experiments for HIV treatment medicines after it determined their products did not result in any improvements compared to other drugs currently available.

The company, known for being the first to produce an anti-HIV treatment, will suspend current experiments being done on two other similar products as a response to the findings of a standard product review

Anti-retroviral drug therapy has slashed AIDS death rates to match those of uninfected people in the first five years after the virus attacks the body, new British research has found.

Since the introduction of anti-retroviral drugs such as Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's. Sustiva in 1996, the five-year, post-diagnosis survival for those infected sexually is now about equal to that of the general population

A South African court on Friday banned unauthorised clinical trials of vitamin therapies for AIDS by a German physician, saying it could pose a health risk.

Physician Matthias Rath and American doctor David Rasnick, a former adviser to President Thabo Mbeki, were accused by the lobby group Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and the South African Medical Association (SAMA) of conducting illegal AIDS drug trials among poor communities