Washington: The House of Representatives has voted to triple to more than USD 10 billion a year US humanitarian spending on fighting AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in Africa and other stricken areas of the world.

About USD 41 billion of the USD 50 billion over five years would be devoted to AIDS, significantly expanding a programme credited with saving more than one million lives in Africa alone. It is the largest US investment ever against a single disease.

Every day another 6,000 people are infected with the HIV virus, said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman, a Democrat. "We have a moral imperative to act and to act decisively," he said.

The House yesterday voted 308-116 to extend and broaden the scope of the USD 15 billion President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that President George W Bush promoted and Congress enacted in 2003. It has been praised as a noteworthy foreign policy success of the Bush presidency.

The White House, which backs the House bill, said the programme is supporting anti-retroviral treatment for about 1.45 million people and is on track to meet its goals of backing treatment for two million, preventing seven million new infections and providing care for 10 million, including orphans and vulnerable children.

In 2007,33 million people worldwide were living with HIV and AIDS, according to the United Nations.

The White House, which originally promoted doubling the programme to USD 30 billion, has expressed concern over the USD 50 billion figure but did not oppose it.

Source : PTI