WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) – HIV/AIDS legislation sent to President Bush will shift care and treatment money to rural areas and the South as Congress voted to renew the largest program for people with HIV/AIDS.

The House agreed by voice vote to renew the $2.1 billion-annual Ryan White CARE Act on Dec. 9. The Senate passed the bill earlier last week after senators from New York and New Jersey dropped their opposition, accepting a compromise that settled months of dispute just as Congress adjourned for the year.

Lawmakers from some urban areas feared losing money under a five-year renewal of the law. The final deal renews it for three years. That allows earlier reviews of the formulas for distributing money and eliminates the large dollar cuts in the final years that threatened some areas.

“This legislation focuses on lifesaving and life-extending services and increased accountability, and will provide more flexibility to the secretary of Health and Human Services to direct funding to areas of greatest need,” President Bush said in a statement.

AIDS began as a big-city epidemic, the disease infecting gay white men for the most part. Today, it is prevalent in the South and among minorities. The updates, the first since 2000, aim to spread money more equally around the country.

Current law only counts patients with full-blown AIDS. The revision also counts patients with the HIV virus who have not developed AIDS. That change favors the South and rural areas, for example, where the disease is a newer phenomenon.

Alabama expects to gain some $7 million in the first year of the new law; New York would lose about $8 million.

“We have addressed the epidemic of today, not yesterday, by modernizing the Ryan White CARE Act to ensure federal funds follow the person being treated – wherever they live,” said GOP Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

California gets some $260 million annually under the legislation and California lawmakers had urged passage of the compromise.

San Francisco was one of the jurisdictions that stood to lose money under the five-year version of the bill. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, who will take over as House speaker when Democrats assume control of Congress in January, applauded the final deal.

“When the reauthorization of the Ryan White CARE Act was passed by the House earlier this year, I was saddened to vote against it because when it came to meeting the needs of people living with AIDS, it fell far short,” Pelosi said. “Tonight, we righted that wrong, sending a vastly improved bill to the president that reaffirms our will to fight HIV and AIDS.”