U.S. launches its $15 billion AIDS plan, activists criticize delays in starting.

WASHINGTON -- The United States launched its $15 billion, five-year AIDS initiative with the disbursement of $350 million in grants to groups operating programs in 14 countries in Africa and the Caribbean.

Activists have criticized the administration for delaying the initiative's launch and for refusing to funnel the money through an existing mechanism, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. They claim the Bush administration wanted political advantage in the disbursements.

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Randall Tobias said the fast round of funds would enable an extra 50,000 people in sub-Saharan Africa to receive treatment, double the current figure.

Harvard University'S School of Public Health will have $107 million of the disbursement which will focus on putting an additional 75,000 people in Nigeria, Tanzania and Botswana on anti-retroviral drugs over the next five years. Three other grants issued went to Catholic Relief Services, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation and Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health to fund treatment and mother-to-child transmission prevention programs. Programs will have some flexibility in buying generic drugs. The five-year initiative, will devote $9 billion to 14 countries in Africa and the Caribbean, $5 billion to existing bilateral projects in more than 100 countries and $1 billion to U.N. anti-AIDS programs.

The recipient countries are Botswana, Ethiopia, Guyana, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. A 15th country in a different global region will be included in the program.