National Minority AIDS Council Building Healthier Communities

Read NMAC's press release here.

The Obama Administration released details about HIV/AIDS funding in the FY2010 budget on a conference call this morning, noting that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) budget will be  $78.4 billion - a $2.6 billion increase from last year. Most notable about the HIV/AIDS funding breakdown:

• $53 million will be geared to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's HIV budget.

• $54 million will be directed to the Ryan White Care Act.

• HOPWA will have a modest increase.

• Abstinence-only budgets will be moving to more evidence-based programming.

The National AIDS Strategy targets include:

• Decreasing HIV incidence

• Addressing health disparities

• Getting people into care

The ban on funding for syringe exchange will not be lifted through the budget process.  The White House will be addressing this issue directly. Officials also said that the abstinence-only funding will be reallocated: 75% will be geared to comprehensive, evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention education and 25% will be used to fund new HIV/AIDS interventions. 

There also will be an increase in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for HIV/AIDS prevention, testing, linkages to services, increasing capacity, and health department monitoring. 

Also on the call, officials said that there will be $443 million increase in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which also will receive $6 billion for cancer research over 8 years.

The HHS budget justifications will be publicly available within the next few days and include more details.