Obama on AIDS: We Will 'Win This Fight'

President Obama marked World AIDS Day with a promise of more money and increased attention both in the US and abroad, reports AP:

• The US will increase spending on HIV treatment within its own borders by $50 million.
• He promised to help 6 million people in hard-hit countries get access to proper medicine by 2014, raising the original goal by 2 million.
• The US also aims to help get drugs to 1.5 million pregnant women who are HIV-positive, to distribute 1 billion condoms in the developing world over the next two years, and to pay for 4.7 million male circumcisions in Africa.

• Obama made a point to praise George W. Bush for launching the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2003, with its big focus on helping curb the disease in Africa. It has proven to be a model in how to help, he said.
• "The rate of new infections may be going down elsewhere, but it's not going down here in America," said Obama. "When new infections among young, black, gay men increase by nearly 50% in three years, we need to do more to show them that their lives matter." Still, he added, "We are going to win this fight."

(More President Obama stories.)