Washington, D.C. --- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), founder of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans, today called on President Bush to include India as part of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a five-year, $15 billion dollar plan to combat international HIV/AIDS. Funding thus far has gone to 14 countries in Africa and the Caribbean, but now Congress has mandated the Bush administration select a 15th country in a new region of the world.

"Designating India as the 15th country of the PEPFAR is consistent with your ambitious international HIV/AIDS goals and will certainly help to achieve your objectives," the New Jersey Congressman wrote in a letter sent to President Bush on Monday. "With appropriate intervention and adequate U.S. funding, India is capable of containing its pandemic."

With a national HIV/AIDS infection rate of just under one-percent and more than four million people infected, India ranks just behind South Africa as the country with the largest number of HIV/AIDS cases. A recent report by the National Intelligence Council indicates that without the urgent implementation of a sizable, coordinated, and sustained response to the epidemic, India could have as many as 25 million cases of HIV/AIDS by the end of the decade.

During a visit to New Delhi in January, Pallone toured the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) facility, a vaccine research center for which Pallone helped secure $24 million in federal funding.

Pallone is currently circulating a letter to members of the House International Relations and Energy and Commerce Committees calling on them to hold a hearing on the HIV/AIDS epidemic in India.