WASHINGTON — President Bush said Wednesday that he would ask Congress to increase U.S. support for the global fight against HIV/AIDS to $30 billion over five years from the current commitment of $15 billion.
The White House estimates the increased spending would treat 2.5 million people, prevent 12 million infections and provide additional care for 12 million people, among them 5 million orphans and other children.
In the program's first three years, through March, it helped pay for treatment of 1.1 million people in 15 countries, nearly all of them in Africa.
"This level of assistance is unprecedented, and the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease," Bush said of the initial five-year program. "This investment has yielded the best possible return: saved lives."
In a speech in the White House Rose Garden, Bush said, "It's important that we continue the work we have begun."
The program, which is up for renewal in 2008, is one of the rare Bush initiatives that has won praise from a wide swath of the political spectrum.
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), a frequent critic of Bush policies and one of the original sponsors of the plan in 2003, applauded the president for seeking expanded funding but said he needed to go further.
She said the government also should boost spending on malaria and tuberculosis, and on related efforts that were not part of the program but could bolster the fight against HIV/AIDS, including education, nutrition, water, food security and healthcare workers.
In a statement, Lee also took issue with the Bush program's emphasis on pre-marriage sexual abstinence. A report by the Institute of Medicine said that such restrictions had "greatly limited" specialists trying to carry out prevention programs among those at greatest risk.
Under the Bush program, known as the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, 20% of the funding is dedicated to AIDS prevention, and one-third of that goes to programs that promote abstinence until marriage.
Dr. Mark R. Dybul, the U.S. global aids coordinator, said in a conference call with reporters that the five-year program also had provided 1.3 billion condoms, and that it had taken "a balanced approach."
He said the proposal would double spending on HIV/AIDS to $30 billion over five years even though the White House had requested only about $5 billion for the next fiscal year, which begins in October.
