Funding to fight AIDS

President Bush asked Congress Wednesday to boost funding to fight AIDS and treat up to 2.5 million people with the disease around the world. His proposal for $30 billion over five years would extend an existing AIDS prevention program, which Congress first approved in 2003 and expires next year. The president often has touted the program, which also fights tuberculosis and malaria, as a key piece of his foreign policy.

An estimated 39.5 million people are living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV and AIDS. There were 4.3 million new infections in 2006 with 65% occurring in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the U.N. program. United States spends more on AIDS prevention, care and treatment than the rest of the world combined.