officials that it was also important to work to lessen the stigma of having AIDS. Church officials recognized that there was not a great deal of profit to be made in selling drugs to this demographic, so they instead made moral arguments for why the companies should work in this area. Following those meetings in April and May 2016, new targets were written into a document signed at the United Nations' High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS in June. The targets called for getting medications to 1.6 million children within two years. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a United States government agency that funds global AIDS response efforts, and the World Council of Churches credited the series of meetings with making progress in an area where previous efforts had stalled. Within a year the program expanded to include getting diagnostic equipment into poor and remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa so that children and their parents could learn their HIV status. Priests with AIDS In the 1980s, dioceses in the United States varied in how they responded to clergy with AIDS. Some were compassionate while others ostracized those infected. There was no national policy on how to handle priests with AIDS at the time, but a spokesman for the bishops' conference said the church should not be punitive but rather provide them with the same care and support as any other sick person. In 1998, evidence suggested that the vast majority of priests with AIDS were treated with dignity and provided ample medical care. In 2005, most dioceses offered health care and housing to priests with AIDS until their deaths. There is no global policy on how to handle priests with AIDS. By 1987, at least 12 of the 57,000 priests in the United States had died of AIDS. By 2001, over 300 priests had died of AIDS. In 2000, the Kansas City Star released a three-part report that claimed priests were dying of AIDS at a rate four times greater than the general population. The report gained widespread coverage in the media, but the study was criticized as being unrepresentative and having "little, if any, real value". The total number of priests who have or have died of AIDS is unknown, partly due to their desire to keep their diagnoses confidential, and estimates vary widely. Many priests acquired the disease by having sex with other men. Others became infected