VIETNAM TO RECEIVE U.S. EMERGENCY HIV/AIDS ASSISTANCE

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
June 22, 2004

BACKGROUND BRIEFING ON THE PRESIDENT'S PENDING HIV/AIDS RELIEF ANNOUNCEMENTS VIA CONFERENCE CALL BY SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIALS

5:05 P.M EDT

(excerpts)

Senior Administration Official: Thank you. Thanks everybody for joining us this afternoon. This is the conference call on the President's HIV/AIDS plan, both internationally and domestically, he'll be providing in a speech tomorrow.

We have three senior administration officials with us today. This will be a background briefing, and the senior administration officials should be referenced as such. So I'll just turn it over to my colleague. We'll each make quick opening remarks, and then turn it over to your questions.

Senior Administration Official: Good afternoon. The President will deliver remarks tomorrow in Philadelphia at the Greater Exodus Baptist Church on the importance of fighting HIV/AIDS both globally and here at home. In 2003, the President announced the emergency plan for AIDS relief and committed $15 billion over five years to treat 2 million HIV-infected people, prevent 7 million infections, and care for 10 million individuals. We remain on track to meet the President's commitment, and within this first year of implementation, expect to provide care and support to approximately 1.1 million people, and antiretroviral treatment to approximately 200,000.

The President will make two announcements tomorrow regarding the emergency plan. The President will also outline his strategy for fighting AIDS here at home. For African Americans aged 25 through 44, HIV is now the second-leading cause of death. The President's '05 budget would support $17.1 billion in domestic spending on research, care, prevention, and treatment, which is a 27 percent increase over '01 funding. He has also supported increases in other AIDS-related programs, including substance abuse treatment and community health centers. However, he believes there's more to do. And tomorrow he'll lay out proposals related to domestic programs, including reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act.

Finally, the President will talk about the importance of medical research in preventing, treating, and some day curing this disease. His '05 budget for the National Institutes of Health request $2.8 billion for AIDS research, which is a $586 million, or a 26 percent increase over '01 funding, including $530 million for vaccine development.

HHS recently announced a new initiative to speed approvals of advanced antiretroviral drugs. And tomorrow, the President will discuss steps to encourage vaccine research. And with that, I'll turn it over to a senior administration official to discuss the emergency plan.

Senior Administration Official: As my colleague reminded you, in his 2003 State of the Union Address, the President launched the emergency plan for AIDS relief. An important element of that plan was to provide strategic focus to 14 countries -- 12 in Africa and two in the Caribbean -- that account for about 50 percent of the infections in the world.

Earlier this year, Congress directed that we select a 15th country, somewhere other than Africa and the Caribbean, and the President will announce tomorrow that that 15th country will be Vietnam. The administration considers that Vietnam is a place where the American people's money can really make a tremendous impact because it is on the brink of a very explosive epidemic. Vietnam currently has 130,000 persons living with AIDS, but it is predicted that that could increase to as many as a million people by 2010. And if that happens, the magnitude of that increase will be eight times the current number of people infected. And that is, in fact, a greater increase, a greater multiplier than India or Russia or China in that same period, which are three of the countries that have been referred to as the "next wave" countries.

Vietnam is a relatively large country with a population of over 80 million people. And in fact, as it joins the focus countries, the 15 now focus countries, it becomes the second largest focus country in the group. We also believe that U.S. intervention is very timely because up to this point, the epidemic has largely been concentrated in intravenous drug users and commercial sex workers, but it is now spreading into the general population. It is present in all 61 provinces, and the data suggests that about 80 percent of all new infections are being sexually transmitted.

Vietnam did a very good job of dealing with SARS. And we're confident that we can work effectively with nongovernment organizations and with the coordination and help of the Ministry of Health in Vietnam in addressing this issue.

On another matter, the President will also announce tomorrow that we are prepared to soon release $500 million in additional funding, which when added to the $350 million we released in February, will bring to $850 million the amount of money that the emergency plan has released for use in the focus countries so far this year.

We have notified Congress, as we are required to do, about our intent with the $500 million. They are reviewing that now. And as soon as they are prepared to release the funds, then those funds will begin to go to work to help the people involved. So those are the two announcements that the President will be making tomorrow about the emergency plan.

Senior Administration Official: On the domestic front, as stated before, the President will be making comments regarding care and treatment, prevention and vaccine research. The President will be discussing that he's committed to re-authorizing the Ryan White Care Act, which is up for reauthorization in the fall of 2005. And there are three guiding principles that the President will pursue in reauthorization. The first is to focus federal resources to ensure that life-saving AIDS medications and care are available to those who cannot provide for themselves. Second, to provide more flexibility in the targeting of funds to ensure that they are provided to communities that need them. And third, to ensure accountability by measuring results and encouraging participation of any provider who can show those results.

Another key piece in the message tomorrow will be that the President recognizes the dire need to promote prevention using proven methods. These include emphasizing abstinence for young people through the ABC model. Abstinence is the only sure way to prevent sexual transmission of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, and to encourage testing.

Approximately 40,000 Americans continue to become infected every year in this country. The President wants anyone who is at risk to get tested. That's the only way we're going to be able to control and arrest this epidemic is by having people recognize that they are infected. Knowing your status is important. And we need to highlight that National Testing Day will be on June 27th. It has been made easier than ever as the FDA has facilitated quick approval of a non-invasive, rapid HIV test.

Senior Administration Official: The President will also discuss the importance of research related to fighting HIV/AIDS. FDA recently announced an initiative to rapidly review the safety of those brand name and generic drugs. This new procedure will allow the emergency plan and other AIDS programs to purchase drugs -- low cost and high quality drugs -- with assurances of their safety.

In addition, the President recently at the G8 announced a proposal for a global vaccine enterprise, which will help bring some strategic vision to development of a vaccine. And tomorrow, he'll talk about the importance of pursuing those efforts.

Senior Administration Official: And with that, we'll take your questions.

Q: Yes, I wanted to ask about the decision to select Vietnam instead of India, for example. A number of people, as you suggested, have been pressing for India, which is a higher infection rate. The numbers are much greater in India. And there have been some suggestions from some on the Hill that this is politically motivated as appealing to the Vietnamese community. I'm wondering if you can go over in detail why Vietnam over India?

Senior Administration Official: Well, the reason that we chose Vietnam is that Vietnam is the place where we believe we can address our money and our attention and really make the greatest impact. And it's very timely because the epidemic in Vietnam is about to go more broadly into the general population, whereas it has been concentrated largely among commercial sex workers and intravenous drug users.

The multiplier effect of looking at the number of people who are infected in Vietnam today, about 130,000 versus the estimate in 2010, is eight times. So we're talking really about explosive growth in a part of the world that will have a tremendous impact not only on Asia and Southeast Asia, but potentially on the rest of the world. That compares with a three times increase in that same period in India, a four times increase in Russia, and a seven and a half times increase in China -- all of which are very, very big numbers.

India was certainly a place that we considered, but one other factor I think that was something that we considered was the degree of commitment that existed in Vietnam today where Vietnam is spending about $36 per person infected with AIDS, as compared to India that's spending about $6 per person infected with AIDS. India is a somewhat different country than all of the other countries in the plan in that they have a growing middle class. They have a growing economy, and they really have the ability to make some trade-off decisions themselves to prioritize more resources in this direction.

This was not an easy call. There are a number of countries in the world that would be very good candidates. But in the end, we concluded that Vietnam was really the best choice.

. . .

Q: This is sort of along the lines of the earlier questions about why not India. I'm told that Cambodia has about 10 times more AIDS cases, or HIV infections as Vietnam. So I wondered what tipped the balance to Vietnam rather than Cambodia? And secondly, I don't understand enough about the process to know how the monies get allocated. But I wonder if there's any way you could suggest how much money this might -- what the range of money might be that Vietnam would get as a result of this designation?

Senior Administration Official: Well, first of all, with respect to Cambodia, Cambodia is one of the countries that we looked at. And Cambodia has made a great deal of progress in bringing their infection rate down through their own initiative and funding that has been received from other sources.

And so we really thought we could make a bigger impact in Vietnam, which was the reason that we went to Vietnam. Our estimate is that in this first year, we will probably be spending something in the range of $8 million to $10 million in Vietnam. But that will very much depend on our ability to work our arrangements with organizations that we will be working with in Vietnam. And then in the following years, Vietnam will become just like the other 15 countries. And so we will look at a variety of factors, including the capacity of the country to absorb the money, and how much money we really think we can effectively put to use. So I couldn't make a more specific estimate than that in terms of the amount.

(end of excerpts)

END 5:34 P.M. EDT

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