CDC awards Atlanta organizations $15 million in funding for HIV prevention

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention will award roughly $15 million in funding over a five-year period to nine different Atlanta-area community based organizations to go towards HIV prevention efforts.

The funds will be distributed to the following organizations:

  • AID Atlanta (as the lead of a partnership with SisterLove, Inc. and National AIDS and Education Services for Minorities, Inc. (NAESM)
  • Empowerment Resource Center (as the lead of a partnership with Tangu Counseling and Treatment Services)
  • Positive Impact Health Centers (as the lead of a partnership with SisterLove, Inc.)
  • Recovery Consultants of Atlanta (as an individual organization)
  • St. Joseph’s Mercy Care Services (as an individual organization)

“Community-based organizations have been vital to our nation’s HIV prevention efforts since the earliest days of the epidemic,” said Jonathan Mermin, M.D., director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention in a statement. “The organizations we’re funding have a strong foothold in the hardest-hit communities. They have the credibility and experience needed to deliver the most effective HIV prevention strategies to those who need them most.”

The CDC tells us they are still working to finalize the budgets but that they anticipate that the average annual award amount going to the lead organization for each partnership (i.e. AID Atlanta, Empowerment Resource Center and Positive Impact Health Centers) will be $735,000 and the average annual amount for individual organizations (i.e. Recovery Consultants of Atlanta and St. Joseph’s Mercy Care Services) will be $350,000. The funds are part of a $216 million pot the CDC doled out to organizations across the country for HIV prevention efforts.

AID Atlanta Interim CEO James Hughey told Georgia Voice recently that they are in “significant debt” but would not specify exact figures. The organization joined forces with AIDS Healthcare Foundation, a move that troubled HIV activists due to AHF leadership’s past comments on pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, which is used by HIV-negative people to reduce their risk of contracting HIV.

This round of funding is separate from the one that the Fulton County Health Department would get. That department is undergoing a full audit by the Fulton County Commission following an investigation by WABE that revealed they had failed to spend some $8.7 million in CDC grant money it had received since 2012.

The department is in year four of a five-year funding cycle and the CDC is saying it is too early to speculate on what amount of funding they will receive for HIV prevention in the future.