On World AIDS Day, Biden Highlights Advances, Promises More
On World AIDS Day, President Joe Biden and his administration are celebrating the advances made in fighting the disease and highlighting their efforts for further progress toward ending the epidemic at home and abroad.Among other things, the State Department has announced a new five-year strategy to guide PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, a global program that has been in place since 2003.“We are at a pivotal moment in the global AIDS response,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote in a document on the PEPFAR strategy, “Fulfilling America’s Promise to End the HIV/AIDS Pandemic by 2030.” “We are closer than ever to reaching the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal of ending the global AIDS pandemic as a public health threat by 2030.
That goal is within reach thanks in part to nearly 20 years of unwavering bipartisan U.S. leadership and investments across U.S.
administrations and from Congress.”So far, the administration said, PEPFAR has saved 25 million lives around the world. Five million babies have been born HIV-free, 20.1 men, women, and children have received lifesaving treatment, and in the past year, 1.5 million people have been gone on HIV prevention drugs.
But the work is not done, administration officials noted.PEPFAR is not on track to meet the goal of bringing new HIV infections down to 370,000 worldwide by 2025, and progress varies greatly from one country to another.
