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The HIV/AIDS pandemic poses a major threat to global stability because it is devastating populations, reducing productivity, depleting social services, and threatening governments around the world.  

The Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief implements a comprehensive and integrated approach to fighting HIV/AIDS. It emphasizes treatment in 14 AIDS-stricken nations and continues and expands ongoing aggressive prevention, care, and support programs.  

The Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest, multiyear commitment in history for an international public health initiative involving a specific disease.

With this commitment, the U.S. will almost triple its annual assistance to fighting HIV/AIDS internationally, when compared to 2001.

Five-year, $15 billion plan. Almost triples current USG spending on HIV/AIDS. A new Global AIDS Coordinator will be appointed. The largest commitment in history for a public health initiative involving a specific disease.

The Emergency Plan is intended to:

• Prevent 7 million new HIV infections, including HIV transmission between mothers and newborns;
• Treat 2 million people living with HIV/AIDS with effective medicines, including anti-retrovirals and antibiotics;
• Care for 10 million HIV-infected individuals and AIDS orphans.

Components of the Plan

• Nearly $10 billion in new U.S. resources over 5 years will be directed to: Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Haiti, and Guyana.
• The plan will provide an additional $1 billion over 5 years to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, bringing the total U.S. commitment to $1.65 billion, almost half of Fund pledges from all donors to date.
• The plan creates a new position -- the Coordinator of United States Government Activities to Combat AIDS Globally. The Coordinator will be responsible for and oversee all resources and activities of the U.S. Government in the fight against the international HIV/AIDS pandemic, including existing initiatives  covering U.S. Government programs for HIV/AIDS already underway in more than 50 countries, and the initiative to combat mother-to-child transmission of HIV to reduce the number of infants born with HIV.

Fighting HIV/AIDS

For HIV prevention activities, the legislation emphasizes the ‘ABC’ model (“Abstain, Be faithful, Use Condoms”) that has proven effective around the world. For example, the ABC model has been effective in Uganda, where the adult prevalence rate of about 5% -- one of the lowest in sub-Saharan Africa -- represents a reduction of more than 50%.

The United States works with a wide array of partners to support and sustain HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care strategies. U.S. partners include nongovernmental organizations, including faith- and community- based groups; private corporations; donor and developing governments; and international organizations such as the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Global Fund.

Political leaders and opinion makers at all levels must speak out on the grave dangers of the disease and against stigma and discrimination and help to disseminate accurate, life-saving information. Public silence about the disease means putting more people at risk for becoming infected and ill, leaving them unable to work and care for their families.

Stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS creates conditions for the virus to spread in populations. Efforts should be aimed at fighting the virus, not the people who are living with it. 

More than 42 million people are now living with HIV/AIDS, according to the most recent global estimates on the disease released in December 2002 by UNAIDS and WHO. Rates of infection in some African nations are as high as 40%, and AIDS has reduced average life expectancy in some countries by more than 30 years. In Haiti and Guyana, life expectancy has dropped by 5 years due to HIV/AIDS. The disease has orphaned nearly 15 million children; more than 12 million of whom are in Africa. Despite donations and significant reductions in price, only 50,000 of the roughly 4 million people in Africa who need anti-retroviral treatment are receiving it.

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