President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged the United States support in the world fight against AIDS. Obama, in the international AIDS conference in Vienna, Austria, said, "Ending this pandemic won't be easy, and it won't happen overnight. But thanks to you, we've come a long way — and the United States is committed to continuing that progress."
Sharing responsibility for making universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, Clinton, said, "As we push to expand access to these resources, the United States will continue to work with our partner countries and with civil society to help empower citizens to lead the charge in their own countries.”
In the international AIDS conference attended by more than 19,000 delegates, an important announcement was made where a vaginal gel spiked with the AIDS drug tenofir showed positive results of blocking the virus. Moreover, another announcement was an icing on the cake where the WHO announced that a record 5.2 million people were receiving lifesaving AIDS drugs last year, up from 4 million in 2008.
However, the task of replenishing the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria wasn’t received well by the delegates. In October, a meet is scheduled among the donors to decide on the fund's financing level for the next three years. There is widespread concern among the delegates that the $20 billion in pledges won’t be met and U.S was directly targeted for it. But, according to a U.N report, U.S has been the largest donor of international AIDS assistance in 2009. More than 58 percent of disbursements by governments were from the U.S.
