HHS Awards $26.8M To Provide HIV/AIDS Care Services to Low-Income Individuals, Families in South Carolina, Senators Say
South Carolina will receive a $26.8 million grant from HHS to provide HIV-positive people in the state with increased access to treatment and care services, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) said in a statement released on Wednesday, the AP/Charlotte Observer reports. According to Graham and DeMint, $25.6 million will be allocated to provide low-income individuals and families in the state with access to treatment. The funding likely will remove people from the waiting list for the state's AIDS Drug Assistance Program -- a federal- and state-funded program that provides HIV/AIDS-related medications to low-income, uninsured and underinsured HIV-positive individuals. As of March, 463 people were on South Carolina's ADAP waiting list, making it the longest such list nationwide, to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation and the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. The remaining $1.2 million will be given to three South Carolina community health centers for a variety of uses -- including risk-reduction counseling and ongoing health services for HIV-positive people -- according to the statement. Thom Berry, a spokesperson for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control, said the grant "will assist, especially in the area of the local community programs, because these are programs that have been cut in the past," adding, "This will help to restore some of the funding that has been lost" (AP/Charlotte Observer, 4/25).
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