FORT LAUDERDALE – As state budget shortfalls continue, AIDS Healthcare Foundation announced that it will pick up some of the cost of providing Florida patients with life-saving HIV drugs. Florida recently put AIDS patients on a waiting list for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, a federal/state program that pays for AIDS drugs for low-income Americans, due to the budget crisis.

According to AHF, it will, through its pharmacy, supply up to $1 million in free AIDS drugs to those who were taken out of the state ADAP program and those on the waiting list for drugs. As of Dec. 10, there were 2,396 Floridians on the state’s ADAP waiting list.

“Through AHF’s offer to fill prescriptions for medications to bridge supply gaps for any displaced Florida ADAP patients, we hope to help ease the state’s AIDS drug crisis and get vulnerable Florida AIDS patients off waiting lists and back on to lifesaving antiretroviral treatment,” said Michael Weinstein, president of AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

The drugs will be dispensed at AHF’s pharmacy locations or shipped for free to those who need it.

AHF serves more than 15,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Florida alone, including free HIV testing and prevention programs; HIV/AIDS health care centers in Fort Lauderdale, Miami and Jacksonville; eight pharmacies throughout the state; a disease management program; and its Positive Healthcare Managed Care program.