“President Obama’s push to reenergize the fight against the AIDS epidemic in the United States led to concern that he was going to allow U.S. global leadership in fighting the disease to languish,” a Washington Post editorial says, adding, “Those fears ought to be calmed after Mr. Obama’s announcement Tuesday of an initiative that will sustain” the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

PEPFAR is a “successful” and “groundbreaking program” that a recent study found prevented about 1.2 million deaths, the editorial says. It adds that about $18.8 billion was spent on the program between 2003 and 2008 and that Congress and former President George W. Bush last year authorized $48 billion for PEPFAR over five years. Obama’s plan “boosts” global health spending to $63 billion over six years, the editorial says, adding, “PEPFAR would receive the bulk of the funding ($51 billion). The rest would be aimed at averting unintended pregnancies and eliminating some tropical diseases.”

According to the editorial, “[e]fforts to end deaths from AIDS will continue to fail until ways are found to slow and eventually halt the number of HIV infections. This task will fall to Dr. Eric Goosby,” who earlier this month was named U.S. global AIDS coordinator. “For more than 25 years, Dr. Goosby has fought the epidemic,” the editorial says, concluding, “He has helped develop and implement major treatment programs in South Africa, Rwanda, China and Ukraine. Given this vast experience, Mr. Goosby must make it a priority to find ways to bring down the rates of HIV infection” (Washington Post, 5/7).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Bloomberg on Wednesday examined how the $10.4 billion increase in NIH funding that is part of the $787 billion economic stimulus plan could boost funding for HIV/AIDS research. According to Bloomberg, more than 15,000 scientists have applied for “challenge grants,” which focus on “new approaches” to HIV/AIDS and other diseases. In addition, NIH is expecting thousands more applications for research and infrastructure funding, including buildings and equipment. Research conducted with challenge grants is expected to produce results by 2011, according to Bloomberg.

Scientists who receive a portion of the stimulus money — which includes $1.3 billion for construction and equipment at universities and institutions — must use it by the end of September 2010. According to Bloomberg, NIH funding has remained at around $29 billion since 2005, and the agency has a $30.4 billion budget for the current fiscal year. Shirley Tilghman, a molecular biologist and president of Princeton University, said the funding increase is a “stunningly large number.”

Theodora Hatziioannou, a researcher at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, applied for an expansion on an existing grant to continue her research on an HIV vaccine. “It’s been very tough to get money over the last few years,” Hatziioannou said, adding, “The only problem I see with the stimulus funding is that it’s limited to two years.” Hatziioannou is conducting research on a monkey protein that resists HIV-1, the strain that causes most HIV infections in humans. If Hatziioannou’s team can discover a way for HIV to overcome this protein, monkeys could be used to test HIV-1 vaccine candidates before they are tested in humans. James Bradac, a virologist at the AIDS division of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said researchers will “be able to test the full spectrum of HIV isolates” if Hatziioannou’s research is successful (Gaouette, Bloomberg, 5/6).

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

© 2009 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.