Search

Begin New Search Topic HIV/AIDS Publishing Institution Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

1. Centering PEPFAR in U.S. Global Health Security Strategies

Author:
Katherine E. Bliss
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), now in its 20th year, supports initiatives that train health workers, strengthen laboratory capabilities, and deliver critical treatment and prevention services to people living with and at risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Credited with having saved more than 25 million lives and enabled more than 5.5 million children to be born HIV-free, PEPFAR programs currently sustain at least 20 million people on antiretroviral therapy. They have also built local capacities that have allowed PEPFAR-supported countries to respond effectively to other health threats, such as the 2019 cholera outbreak in Mozambique, the Covid-19 pandemic, mpox, and the Ebola outbreak in Uganda in 2022. Recognizing the contributions made by PEPFAR to addressing recent health crises, the Biden administration has begun to more explicitly align HIV/AIDS and health security approaches, both in the December 2022 PEPFAR strategy as well as through the July 2023 launch of the Bureau of Global Health Security and Diplomacy at the U.S. Department of State. In this report, the CSIS Working Group on Reinvigorating U.S. Leadership on HIV/AIDS offers concrete recommendations for advancing progress on reaching the goal of eliminating HIV as a global public health threat by 2030 while maximizing the contributions of a disease-specific health initiative to pandemic preparedness and response.
Topic:
HIV/AIDS, Health, Foreign Aid, and US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief(PEPFAR)
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. The Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. Initiative: An Interim Assessment and Policy Recommendations

Author:
Jeffrey L. Sturchio, Mackenzie Burke, and Maclane Speer
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
The Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) initiative is a promising federal program launched by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in February 2019 with the aim of reducing new HIV infections by 75 percent by 2025 and 90 percent by 2030 (from a baseline of more than 38,000 new diagnoses in 2017). While the EHE initiative set ambitious targets for ending the HIV epidemic in the United States in the context of a sound and sensible plan, it is at present off track. Now, three years in—at the midpoint of the first EHE phase, which has a target of reducing new HIV infections to 9,250 people or fewer by 2025—is an opportune moment to assess its status and the challenges it faces. After a review of progress to date, this report examines the collision between the logical plan behind the EHE initiative and the complicated patchwork of programs that provide HIV prevention, care, and treatment to the diverse communities affected across all EHE jurisdictions. The analysis is informed by several roundtable discussions convened by CSIS with the participation of a representative group of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA), community advocates, physicians, service providers, researchers, and policymakers who are implementing the EHE initiative around the country. The report concludes with policy recommendations in four areas: (1) meet people where they are by building programs that are centered on the needs of populations directly affected by the HIV epidemic; (2) address flexibility in design and implementation; (3) improve data, metrics, and accountability; and (4) heighten political advocacy to ensure future funding of the EHE initiative. A strong theme that runs throughout the report is that lessons from the global HIV response—the importance of building interventions from the ground up, of engaging with affected communities, and of taking an integrated approach across a spectrum of biomedical, clinical, social, behavioral, economic, and political dimensions—can inform and strengthen the U.S. domestic response to HIV/AIDS.
Topic:
HIV/AIDS, Health, Medicine, and Epidemic
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

3. The International AIDS Conference Returns to the United States

Author:
Katherine E. Bliss
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Abstract:
In 1985, four years after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published a notice in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report regarding unusual clusters of disease in young, otherwise healthy, gay men in California and New York, more than 2,000 scientists from around the world assembled at the World Congress Center in Atlanta to exchange research and compare notes on what had come to be known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS. There have been 18 international AIDS conferences since that initial gathering, in locales ranging from Amsterdam and Florence to Durban and Mexico City. These conferences, which have been organized since 1988 by the International AIDS Society, have evolved from modest- sized meetings of scientists and researchers to multitrack, week-long conventions attracting more than 20,000 delegates, including heads of state, celebrities, philanthropists, researchers, activists, and people living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and AIDS.
Topic:
HIV/AIDS, Health, International Cooperation, and Infectious Diseases
Political Geography:
United States