The federal government's pledge of $120 million for HIV/AIDS is welcome, but money is also needed for vaccination and other projects, the director of CARE Canada's HIV/AIDS program said Friday.

The funding announcement is good, but many of the projects listed are ones that Canada is already involved in and were part of the $450-million funding promise the federal government made at this year's G-8 summit, Michelle Munro said.

The money includes $14 million to the International Partnership for Microbicides to help women protect themselves and $6 million over two years through the Global Health Research Initiative.

"What we want to do is make sure that we will work on microbicide vaccine, education, access to treatment for people who are infected," International Co-operation Minister Josée Verner said in making the announcement on World AIDS Day in Montreal.

Canada needs to contribute to the global fund, but there also needs to be a balance of funding for vaccination programs and projects in individual countries, given the "unprecedented" epidemic, Munro said.

Internationally, AIDS is still a catastrophe, with more people becoming infected every year with HIV in developing countries than are gaining access to antiretroviral drugs, said Dr. Mark Wainberg of the McGill University AIDS Centre.

One of the challenges is that the federal government is re-examining aspects of its national AIDS strategy, he said.

"We want very much for this government to show full commitment to causes relating to HIV/AIDS not only internationally … but as well we want commitments to be made here at home," said Wainberg, who co-chaired the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto in August.

Drug advances in wealthy Western countries need to translate into benefits for people in the developing world, Wainberg said.

Jack Layton, the federal NDP leader, said his party is calling on the Conservative government to allow cheaper generic drugs to be produced for use abroad.

"Finally, Canada has an announcement of some significant funding and we should welcome that," Layton said. "We should also be taking the next step, which is to honour our promise of three years ago, which was to deliver low-cost drugs to the people of Africa. Not a single pill has left."