Biden budget proposes increased funding for ending HIV

 

Washington DC… In President Biden’s first preliminary budget that was released today, he is proposing to continue to ramp up efforts to end HIV in the United States with an increase of $267 million for domestic HIV testing, prevention, and treatment programs as part of the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative. This builds on the over $400 million Congress appropriated for the first two years of the historic initiative begun under the last administration to end HIV by 2030 by initially focusing on scaling up programs in jurisdictions most impacted by HIV. 

 

“We thank President Biden for demonstrating his commitment to ending HIV in the United States by including this substantial funding increase in his budget to ramp up the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative,” commented Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute. “While it falls short of what the community has requested, if this funding is realized it will continue the momentum already created and make further progress in ending HIV in the U.S. Efforts to end HIV will help eradicate an infectious disease that we have been battling for the last 40 years and help correct racial and health inequities in our nation.”

 

Last year, President Trump’s budget called for an increase of $412 million for the second year of the initiative for a total of $716 million while the Congress settled on an increase of approximately $137 million. Total funding for the initiative would total $670 million if the Biden budget request is approved.

 

Despite battling the COVID epidemic, we have already witnessed promising results of the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative. The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program reports they were able to bring nearly 6,300 new clients into the program and re-engage an additional 3,600. Community health centers were able to increase PrEP uptake from 19,000 in 2020 to nearly 50,000 people early this year.

 

The preliminary budget did not include details on how much funding would be allocated to hepatitis prevention at the CDC. 

 

HIV+Hep looks forward to learning more details on the budget proposal and working with the Congress in a bipartisan fashion to further fund the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative and hepatitis programs so that progress can be made to end these infectious diseases.