Obama Administration Announces National HIV/AIDS Strategy

By Victoria Jones - Talk Radio News Service

The Obama administration announced Tuesday its national HIV/Aids strategy, which has three primary goals: reducing the number of new infections, increasing access to care and optimizing health outcomes for people living with HIV and reducing HIV-related health disparities.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the goal of the White House is to make HIV infection rare. She said that since the 1990s, progress in prevention of HIV has slowed, and that while we are keeping pace, we should be gaining ground. She said that one person is infected every nine and a half minutes.

Sebelius said that the strategy would intensify prevention in communities, and that while condoms and testing are important, prevention is most successful when are all tools are used. All those who are infected should receive “unfettered access to high quality life-extending care free from stigma and discrimination”, said Sebelius.

Sebelius said that $30 million would be made available for new and existing efforts to learn about HIV, especially in needy communities. She also said that the strategy should involve ways to use resources more effectively, that it was not just an injection of cash.

White House Domestic Policy Director Melody Barnes said that an estimated 56,000 Americans contract HIV each year, although the disease has slowed since the 1980s. Roughly 1.1 million Americans are living with HIV.

A representative from Housing Works, an AIDS advocacy organization, asked how going from one person infected every nine and a half minutes to one infected every twelve minutes makes HIV rare. The reply was that a 25% decrease in infection is an achievable, realistic goal to achieve within five years. In the past, aggressive goals have not worked.


Victoria Jones is a White House Correspondent for Talk Radio News Service