“For nearly two decades, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has supported more than 50 countries around the world to emerge from the deepest devastation of AIDS, all while improving the health and well-being of millions of people. In many communities, where AIDS once brought death and despair, there is now life and hope. PEPFAR has saved more than 25 million lives, prevented millions of HIV infections, and supported a growing number of countries to bring their HIV epidemics under control” ( Antony J Blinken, Secretary of State, December 2022).
Twenty years ago, on January 28, 2003, President George W. Bush gave a speech in the USA that changed the world, launching President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), declaring a war on the HIV virus and unveiled a strategy for combating the plague that has over twenty years, proved successful. According to ( Bass E, 23), PEPFAR was, and is, the largest disease specific global health program in American (or world) history, and this century’s most successful effort to end a plague. PEPFAR was established by law as an office in the U.S. State Department, with an ambassador level head reporting to the Secretary of State and in the Bush era with a direct line to a receptive president.
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