New York state adding $200M more to $2.5B fight against AIDS
New York will dedicate $200 million more to its effort to end the AIDS epidemic by 2020, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday.
The new funding will expand housing assistance statewide for people with HIV and enhance services at "one-stop" STD clinics in New York City. It will also expand the use of a medication that can protect uninfected people at risk of infection and increase funding for medical care for those living with the disease.
The new money is on top of $2.5 billion New York is already spending to encourage testing and prevention, and support those living with the disease.
"New York was once the epicenter of the AIDS crisis, but now we are showing the nation how to fight back and make this epidemic a thing of the past," Cuomo said in a statement detailing the new funding. "We are making rapid progress toward a future where more people know their status, medication is easily accessible, and new cases are more and more rare."
The state hopes to decrease the number of new cases to below 750 by 2020. It is already reporting significant milestones: no new cases of mother-to-child transmission were reported in the past year—the first time that's happened since the epidemic began.
State figures indicate more than 200,000 New Yorkers have been diagnosed with AIDS since the disease was first identified. More than 112,000 people in New York are living with the disease today.
Cuomo plans to outline the state's progress, and its next steps, in a speech Tuesday at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
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