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.
The bill, S. 2731, was approved by the Foreign Relations Committee in March and endorsed by both Senators Obama and McCain, but received little opposition by several Republican legislators. The bill has already been approved by the House of Representatives.
Calling the bill "life-saving legislation," Bush said that 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa were receiving anti-retroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS when he launched the program in 2003. Today, 1.7 million people receive treatment around the world, Agence France-Presse quotes him as saying.
The bill not only lays out a five-year strategy for confronting AIDS, TB and malaria, but also sets up a policy framework on such closely related issues as gender, care for orphaned children, nutrition, and health care worker shortages.
