ASHINGTON - Asserting the United States has a ''moral duty'' to do more to fight AIDS, Vice President Al Gore announced a new $100 million proposal to help Africa stop the spread of the disease.
Gore, whose presidential campaign has been dogged by AIDS activists, also released a new study on the scope and the toll of the HIV virus in Africa.
''The crisis is growing, and so must our commitment,'' he said.
Activists from ACT-UP have pursued Gore along the campaign trail to protest administration policies that they say make it difficult to get affordable AIDS drugs to people who need them in South Africa.
Yesterday, the vice president, joined by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the Nobel laureate from South Africa, announced proposals not included in the Clinton administration's fiscal 2000 budget to fight AIDS in Africa.
Also at the event was Olivia Nantong, a 20-year-old from Uganda whose mother died from AIDS eight years ago. Gore and Sandy Thurman, the administration's AIDS policy adviser, stood by the sobbing Nantong and whispered encouragement as she thanked the US government for supporting a grass-roots group in Uganda that took care of her when she was orphaned.
''The story Olivia just told us, which wrenches our hearts - try multiplying that by 40 million to capture some idea of the magnitude of that tragedy,'' Gore said.
The spending proposals announced by Gore included $48 million for AIDS education, counseling and testing, which involved a Defense Department program to train African militaries on how to provide AIDS prevention training.
The remaining funds would be targeted at home- and community-based care, caring for children orphaned by AIDS and helping other countries build infrastructure to confront the spread of AIDS.
''We are the promise of hope and change,'' Gore said. ''We have the knowledge and the compassion and the moral duty to make a difference.''
The proposals would be paid for through offsets from existing domestic programs.
Gore also released a report from the Office of National AIDS policy that found 12 million people in sub-Saharan Africa have died of AIDS in the past decade. By 2005, the death toll could reach 13,000 people per day.
AIDS Action, which represents 3,200 community-based groups in the United States, applauded Gore's announcement as a ''historic breakthrough.'' But others were irritated that the vice president hadn't addressed concerns over trade policies affecting prescription drugs.
''Certainly, some money is better than none,'' said Dr. Peter Lurie, an activist with Public Citizen. ''But the fact is that for not a penny the American government could stop supporting trade restrictions that are an important reason people with AIDS can't get access to drugs.''
