| | Celebrating Life: Fifth Annual Report to Congress on PEPFAR
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 For more than 25 years, the global community has witnessed the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS. Until recently, many wondered whether prevention, treatment and care could ever make a measurable impact, particularly in resource-limited settings where HIV was a death sentence.
Just 5 years ago, only 50,000 people living with HIV in all of sub-Saharan Africa were receiving antiretroviral treatment. Recognizing that HIV/AIDS was and is a global health emergency requiring emergency action, President George W. Bush and a bipartisan, bicameral Congress reflected the compassion and generosity of the American people.
Their creation, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), holds a unique place in the history of public health for its size and scope.
The success of PEPFAR is firmly rooted in a commitment to results. Through partnerships between the American people and the people of the countries in which we are privileged to serve - governments, non-governmental organizations including faith-based organizations and community-based organizations, and the private sector - we are building sustainable systems and empowering individuals, communities, and nations to battle HIV/AIDS.
Together, we have acted quickly. We have already obligated 92 percent of the funds initially appropriated to PEPFAR and have expended or outlayed 68 percent of those resources.
But success is not best measured in dollars spent. PEPFAR's success is measured in services provided and lives saved.
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World AIDS Day 2008: Celebrate Life! |
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 On World AIDS Day 2008, we celebrate life. In countless communities around the world, through partnerships with the American people, courageous individuals in nations devastated by HIV/AIDS are choosing life, saving the lives of their fellow countrymen and women, and creating hope for a future free of HIV/AIDS. Through the power of these partnerships, the American people and the dedicated men and women in nations devastated by HIV/ AIDS have proven that the seemingly impossible is possible.
On December 1, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) announced that the United States has fulfilled its commitment early to support treatment for two million people. As of September 30, 2008, PEPFAR supported life-saving antiretroviral treatment for more than 2.1 million men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS around the world. When President George W. Bush announced PEPFAR in 2003, it was estimated that only 50,000 people were receiving treatment for HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. Today, PEPFAR supports treatment for more than 2 million people in sub-Saharan Africa -- forty times the number receiving treatment only five years ago.
As of September 30, 2008, nearly 9.7 million people affected by HIV/AIDS in PEPFAR's 15 focus countries had received compassionate care, including nearly 4 million orphans and vulnerable children. It is safe to say that as of December 1, 2008, the U.S. also has met the goal of supporting care for 10 million people affected by HIV in the focus countries. Globally, the U.S. is supporting care for over 10.1 million, including over 4 million children.
In addition, nearly 240,000 babies have been born free of HIV, due to the support of the American people for programs to prevent mothers from passing the virus on to their children. And PEPFAR has supported a strategic prevention portfolio which includes Abstinence, Be faithful, and correct and consistent use of Condoms, providing ABC prevention messages in hundreds of millions of encounters. [more]
World AIDS Day Resources:
| | | A-Z Subject Index
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Partnership for an HIV-Free Generation |
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Policy Podcast with U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Ambassador Mark Dybul |
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PEPFAR Highlights |
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