The Hindu : $120 m U.S. aid to fight AIDS in India

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 07, 2002

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$120 m U.S. aid to fight AIDS in India

By Our Staff Reporter

Chennai Nov. 6. The United States Ambassador to India, Robert D. Blackwill, today committed $120 million over the next five years to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India, expressing the hope that science would co-exist with a humanitarian approach in the battle against the disease.

Juxtaposing the Indian context with the larger picture of the world's fight against HIV/AIDS, Mr. Blackwill stressed on the need to build and sustain partnerships between India and the U.S., in order to handle the epidemic before it assumed "tragic" proportions.

In the last five years, the U.S. had given $63 million to India, besides enabling several sections of the U.S. Government Mission to interact with the Indian Government and limit the transmission of HIV/AIDS.

Mr. Blackwill was speaking on `India-The United States and the Fight Against HIV/AIDS' at a luncheon meeting organised by the Indian Network for People Living with HIV/AIDS and Family Health International. USAID supported two major bilateral projects in India-APAC in Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry and AVERT Project in Maharashtra, he said.

USAID also funded other non-bilateral activities, creating new prevention efforts in 12 major ports, including Chennai, helping children affected by AIDS and increasing applied research involving business and the workplace. HIV prevention would be incorporated into USAID-assisted ventures in the sector of family planning in Uttar Pradesh and assistance to CARE India.

Touching on the process of developing a vaccine, Mr. Blackwill said scientists from India and the United States were working together through the Indo-U.S. Vaccine Action Program and the new Indo-U.S. HIV/AIDS prevention research programme.

Calling for new solutions to address the changing patterns of HIV/AIDS, he said it was significant in a country like India, which could surpass South Africa as the country with the largest number of HIV/AIDS sufferers in the world.

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