Oct. 30 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said the U.S. will eliminate a 22-year-old ban on foreign nationals with HIV entering the country, saying it will be a step toward removing the stigma from the disease and encourage testing.

“We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic, yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering,” Obama said today at the White House. “If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS we need to act like it.”

Obama made the announcement as he signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009, reauthorizing a federal program that provides HIV-related health care.

The lifting of the travel ban was initiated last year by Congress when it approved legislation funding HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs sought by then-President George W. Bush.

The legislation eliminated the statutory requirement that HIV-infected travelers be excluded from entry to the U.S. and left it to the Department of Health and Human Services to decide on a final rule. Obama announced today that HHS will publish new rules on Nov. 2, to take effect Jan. 4, 2010.

Funding for Treatment

The Ryan White law was first authorized by Congress in 1990. Its reauthorization passed the Senate on Oct. 19 and the House on Oct. 21. According to the program’s Web site, it provides $2.1 billion to people “who do not have sufficient health care coverage” and financial help in coping with HIV. The funds are administered by HHS, the Health Resources and Services Administration and the HIV/AIDS Bureau.

The program “helps communities that are most severely affected by this epidemic and often least-served by our health- care system,” Obama said. Those include minority groups, the homeless and people living in rural areas, he said.

The legislation is named after an Indiana teenager who had hemophilia and was diagnosed with AIDS in 1984 when he was 13 years old. He was infected through of a blood transfusion. White died on April 8, 1990, at 18 years old, a few months before Congress passed the legislation.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement that the legislation helps get medical devices and pharmaceuticals to more than 500,000 people, almost half of the individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the U.S.

To contact the reporter on this story: Kate Andersen Brower in Washington at Kandersen7@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 30, 2009 13:11 EDT