National AIDS Strategy to be Released TOMORROW

via New York Times, by Robert Pear

President Obama will unveil a new national strategy this week to curb the AIDS epidemic by slashing the number of new infections and increasing the number of people who get care and treatment.

“Annual AIDS deaths have declined, but the number of new infections has been static and the number of people living with H.I.V. is growing,” says a final draft of the report, obtained by The New York Times.

In the report, the administration calls for steps to reduce the annual number of new H.I.V. infections by 25 percent within five years. “Approximately 56,000 people become infected each year, and more than 1.1 million Americans are living with H.I.V.,” the report says.

Mr. Obama plans to announce the strategy, distilled from 15 months of work and discussions with thousands of people around the country, at the White House on Tuesday.

Read the rest.

And from the National AIDS Strategy website:

On Tuesday, July 13, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and White House officials will unveil the Obama Administration's National HIV/AIDS Strategy.  Watch the presentation of the plan online at WhiteHouse.gov/live at 2:00 p.m. ET. 

Later that day, President Barack Obama will deliver remarks at a White House reception honoring the HIV/AIDS Community.  The President's address can also be viewed online at WhiteHouse.gov/live at 6:00 p.m. ET. 

Preparing For the Strategy:

On Tuesday afternoon, the Strategy will be posted online at: WhiteHouse.gov/ONAP.  To help prepare community members for the announcement, the Coalition for a National AIDS Strategy developed this Guide to Communicating about the Strategy, which offers ideas on how to leverage the plan to garner local and national attention to urgent issues in our communities.

Other helpful resources include the Gender Monitoring Toolkit and Report Card developed by a coalition of groups to evaluate and monitor the Strategy from a human rights and gender perspective.  Moving Beyond the Status Quo summarizes the recommendations of an independent working group for the Strategy to be maximally effective.

Other community recommendations for the plan are posted at nationalaidsstrategy.org.

Responses to the Strategy

The Coalition for a National AIDS Strategy will host a community conference call on Tuesday, August 10 at 2:00 p.m. ET to share community reactions to the Strategy, reports on the International AIDS Conference taking place in July in Vienna, and discuss advocacy steps needed to move implementation of the Strategy forward.  Stay tuned to this blog for agenda, call-in information, and other details.