A New AIDS Plan for Americans, and New Hopes for a Vaccine(20100806)

Researchers, policy makers and activists are busy (preparing) for the International AIDS Conference. The next (conference) begins Sunday in Vienna, Austria.

On Tuesday, the Obama administration (announced) its National HIV/AIDS Strategy. The plan aims to (reduce) new HIV infections by twenty-five percent within five years. It also (aims) to make sure (infected) patients get treatment more quickly.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. The government says sixty-five (percent) of Americans who discover they are infected get (treatment) within three months. The new plan calls for increasing that to eighty-five percent.

Thirty million dollars from the health (care) reform law is to go to support prevention activities, including expanded HIV testing.
Over one million Americans are living with the (virus), out of an estimated thirty-three million people worldwide.

Last week, government (scientists) in the United States announced the discovery of two antibodies that (raise) hopes for an AIDS vaccine. They say these antibodies can stop more than ninety percent of all known strains of HIV. Antibodies are proteins that the body makes to help protect itself against infection.

Researchers made the (discovery) at the National (Institute) of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The (director) of its Vaccine Research Center, Gary Nabel, says each antibody (blocks) the virus from attaching to white blood cells.