Clinton Approves $400-Million Bill to Fight AIDS, Other Diseases Around Globe

President Clinton signed into law Saturday bipartisan legislation that pledges more than $400 million to fight AIDS and other infectious diseases in Africa and around the world.

“In our tightly connected world, infectious disease anywhere is a threat to public health everywhere,” Clinton said in his weekly radio address, which he delivered before he signed the bill in Lake Placid, N.Y., where the first family is vacationing. “AIDS threatens the economies of the poorest countries, the stability of friendly nations, the future of fragile democracies.”

U.S. public health officials have termed the AIDS epidemic the worst social catastrophe to strike Africa since slavery. It is estimated that of the 34 million people worldwide who are living with AIDS, three-quarters reside in sub-Saharan Africa. AIDS accounts for more than one-fifth of all deaths in the region, and nations such as South Africa are facing a staggering loss of young people to the disease.

The legislation, titled the Global Aids and Tuberculosis Relief Act of 2000, authorizes the U.S. Agency for International Development to spend $300 million for AIDS prevention and education programs--including efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission as well as for voluntary testing, counseling programs and grants to help organizations caring for those living with HIV or AIDS.

The bill also authorizes $60 million for international tuberculosis programs and another $60 million for vaccine and immunization efforts. In addition, it would create a World Bank AIDS trust fund to provide additional grants to those countries hardest hit by AIDS.

Congress must still allocate the money to fund the global AIDS initiative, but that is expected to happen later this year as legislators approve the government’s annual funding bills. The AIDS bill, sponsored by Rep. James A. Leach (R-Iowa), passed the House and Senate with strong bipartisan support.

While the AIDS epidemic is most severe in Africa, U.S. assistance would be available for programs in other parts of the world, including Asia, Latin America and some of the countries that made up the former Soviet Union.

The signing ceremony took place at the Lake Placid home of real estate developer Arthur Lussi, where the Clintons also celebrated the president’s 54th birthday Saturday.

Western nations, which have managed to control AIDS at home through education, prevention and the development of expensive drugs, have been criticized for not doing more abroad. “We have to do more to combat this plague around the world,” Clinton acknowledged in his address.

In January, Vice President Al Gore told an unprecedented U.N. Security Council meeting on AIDS that the disease represents a “security threat of the greatest magnitude.”

In the Republican response to Clinton’s message, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee focused on domestic issues and the GOP’s belief that less government is better.

“The best candidates may not be the ones who promise big things from government but may be those who haven’t forgotten the little things done by mothers and fathers, teachers and coaches,” Huckabee said in a dig at Gore’s convention promise to expand federal aid for everything from preschool for toddlers to prescription drugs for the elderly.

Added Huckabee: “It’s not really a president or vice president who’s responsible for our strong economy--despite what you might have heard in Los Angeles.”

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Reuters wire service contributed to this story.