CLINTON MARKS WORLD AIDS DAY

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Clinton marked World AIDS Day today by
pledging a package of assistance to nations that must combat the spread of
the deadly disease while caring for increasing numbers of children orphaned
by it.

The White House announced $10 million in grants for the care of AIDS
orphans and highlighted a 30 percent increase in funding to the National
Institutes of Health for research on HIV prevention and treatment around
the world.

Clinton was making the announcements today in a White House ceremony
commemorating World AIDS Day. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and
Brian Atwood, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International
Development, were scheduled to join him. Details were released before
Clinton spoke.

The administration's package of assistance is expected to have the largest
impact in Africa, where the United Nations AIDS program estimates that
nearly 8 million children have been orphaned by AIDS and at least 1 million
children are infected with the virus.

The president is sending his AIDS policy adviser, Sandy Thurman, to
southern Africa to gather facts about AIDS orphans and report on how the
United States can respond to the problem.

Today's announcement came as AIDS organizations declared Clinton had not
done enough to stauch the spread of the disease both abroad and at home.
They said that, research dollars notwithstanding, Clinton's administration
had failed in areas such as needle exchange programs and prevention,
education efforts among U.S. minorities, whose HIV infection rates are
going up.

``As America reaps the rewards of our investments in research and care,
we're witnessing skyrocketing infection rates and an AIDS holocaust in
Africa because of our failure to address prevention and international
efforts,'' said Daniel Zingale, executive director of AIDS Action, an
umbrella group of community-based organizations.

Earlier this year, the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS criticized
Clinton and Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala for an
``almost complete silence and continued inaction'' on needle exchanges.
Clinton's drug policy chief Barry McCaffrey opposed the programs, saying
they jeopardized efforts to cut drug use.

Ethan Nadelmann, founder of The Lindesmith Center, a privately funded drug
policy research group, accused the administration of engaging in political
expediency on the needle exchange issue. ``It's extremely unfortunate that,
due to Washington politics, none of this money can be used to ... make
sterile syringes available to prevent the further spread of HIV,''
Nadelmann said.

The Agency for International Development projects that as many as 40
million children will be orphaned by AIDS by 2010, with 90 percent of them
in developing countries that lack the resources to care for them. In the
United States alone, USAID said, about 80,000 children have lost a parent
to AIDS.

The grants, administered by USAID, will be used to provide training for
foster families, schooling for orphans, vocational training and other
assistance. Also, USAID will work on improving medical care given children
infected with HIV, and preventing the transfer of the virus from mother to
child.

The White House said the NIH funding, included in the fiscal 1999 budget,
represents the largest single investment of public monies into AIDS
research. It includes $200 million for AIDS vaccine research, an increase
of $47 million over the previous year, and $164 million for new research
such as prevention trials and prevention/treatment of ``opportunistic
infections'' like tuberculosis that kill people with HIV and AIDS.

As for AIDS in the United States, Vice President Al Gore was to announce
$200 million for housing assistance for AIDS patients and their families.
And Clinton was highlighting an earlier announcement of $156 million toward
fighting AIDS among U.S. minorities.

Besides those efforts, Congress has approved funding increases for a range
of HIV/AIDS programs, including an extra $262 million for the Ryan White
CARE Act, an additional $32 million for HIV prevention programs through the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an extra $21 million for
Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS.

Checked-by: Richard Lake