House Okays $48B Plan To Fight Aids

WASHINGTON — The House voted yesterday to triple money to fight AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis around the world, giving new life and new punch to a program credited with saving or prolonging millions of lives in Africa alone.

The 303-115 vote sends the global AIDS bill to President Bush for his signature. Mr. Bush, who first floated the idea of a campaign against the scourge of AIDS in his 2003 State of the Union speech, supports the five-year, $48 billion plan.

Passage of the bill culminated a rare instance of cooperation between the White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress. It was "born out of a willingness to work together and put the United States on the right side of history when it comes to this global pandemic," Rep. Barbara Lee a Democrat of California and a leader on the issue, said.

The current $15 billion act, which expires at the end of September, has helped bring lifesaving anti-retroviral drugs to some 1.7 million people and supported care for nearly 7 million. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief has won plaudits from some of Mr. Bush's harshest critics both in Congress and around the world. Both Democrats and Republicans hailed it as one of the most significant accomplishments of the Bush presidency.

America, said Rep. Howard Berman, a Democrat of California and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, "has given hope to millions infected with the HIV virus, which just a few years ago was tantamount to a death sentence."