"The Caribbean has an estimated 420,000 individuals living with HIV/AIDS, and another 1.4 million living with HIV/AIDS in Latin America," Secretary Thompson said. "This Pan-Caribbean partnership is an essential and necessary step in making sure those living with HIV/AIDS and those at risk have access to prevention and treatment services."

The signing will culminate a day-long meeting with Caribbean ministers of health, nongovernmental organizations and donor agencies as Secretary Thompson and senior U.S. health officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provide an overview of current global HIV/AIDS activities and outline plans for future health partnerships.

The partnership agreement will expand the reach of HHS programs, particularly the Global AIDS Program, a joint collaboration between the CDC and HRSA to operate health staff in 25 countries to help prevent HIV infection, improve care and treatment and build capacity to address the global HIV/AIDS pandemic. The agreement will increase the number of on-the-ground Global AIDS staff and CDC plans to announce additional staff placements in Guyana, Haiti and Trinidad. Furthermore, HRSA will preview the future development of a partnership with Caribbean regional organizations, ministries of health and nongovernmental organizations to support the development of HIV/AIDS care and treatment infrastructure.

While in Guyana, Secretary Thompson also plans to make a site visit to a local voluntary counseling and testing center, which provides anonymous HIV testing, outreach to adolescents and youth, and operates a hotline program.

"It's extremely important to get in the field and see how things work firsthand," Secretary Thompson said. "The health clinics, hospitals and community-based programs provide a line of defense that's absolutely critical to help prevent, diagnose and treat HIV/AIDS infection."

HHS' fiscal year 2003 budget includes $477 million for a multifaceted effort to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries, including:

· A total of $100 million from HHS for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria;

· $144 million for the CDC's prevention, care and treatment capacity development activities to slow the spread of AIDS in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. CDC's budget also includes $11 million for applied prevention research on HIV vaccine, microbicides and treatments; and

· $222 million for NIH to support comprehensive international AIDS research efforts, including development of vaccines, microbicides, treatments, prevention interventions, and diagnostics; and support of research training, infrastructure and capacity building. NIH supports AIDS research and capacity-building projects in more than 50 countries, including many nations in the Caribbean.