With approximately 800 people in Georgia on a waiting list to receive life-saving HIV/AIDS medications, activists are urging Gov.-elect Nathan Deal to increase funding to the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program by $5 million in his first budget.
At a press conference inside the State Capitol on Wednesday — World AIDS Day — approximately 50 HIV activists and those living with HIV delivered some 1,200 postcards to Deal’s office at the state Capitol urging him to fund the ADAP program that provides medication to those who can’t get them any other way.
“It is absolutely unforgivable that in this day and age a state like Georgia would have a waiting list for ADAP,” said Jeff Graham, executive director of Georgia Equality that has founded the Save Georgia’s Drug Assistance Program group.