Panel Approves Emergency AIDS Relief : Health: House-Senate negotiators agree on $226 million for hardest-hit areas and for early care. Activists are disappointed by the amount.

House and Senate negotiators agreed Friday to spend $226 million on landmark AIDS legislation that would provide emergency relief to those cities hardest hit by the deadly disease and help pay for early care for people just beginning to show signs of illness.

The figure endorsed by a House and Senate conference committee is far less than the $875 million authorized when Congress enacted the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act of 1990 last summer.

The act is named after the Indiana teen-ager who crusaded against AIDS discrimination after he contracted the disease through treatment for hemophilia.

Of the $226 million approved for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, $110 million represents funding already being spent on existing programs that conference committee negotiators decided to fold into the Ryan White legislation.

Representatives of gay activist organizations expressed disappointment with the conference committee’s work.

“We’re glad that this process is finally over so we can begin to implement this legislation,” said Karen Friedman of the Human Rights Campaign Fund, a major gay and lesbian political action committee.

“But we . . . are extraordinarily disappointed by the amount, and we plan to work hard to ensure that this bill is fully funded in the next year.”

The so-called “disaster relief” part of the legislation is intended to provide special aid directly to metropolitan areas reporting more than 2,000 cases of AIDS, or an incidence of at least 25 AIDS cases for every 10,000 people. The Los Angeles metropolitan area, including Orange County, would qualify, along with San Francisco, San Diego, New York and a dozen other metropolitan areas.

A second program will offer grants to states, using a formula based on the number of reported cases over the previous two years.

A third program is designed to provide money to states and private clinics to provide early intervention services, including testing for the AIDS virus, counseling and the prescribing of drugs, such as AZT, that have been shown to delay the onset of the disease.

Final figures on how much will be available for the three major programs funded under the act will not be available until the conference committee files its final report, probably over the weekend, congressional staff members said.