First announced during the 2003 State of the Union Address by the then President, George W. Bush, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is celebrating its 15th anniversary in 2018. Over the past 15 years, PEPFAR has dramatically changed the landscape of the global response to HIV, and bipartisan support across successive administrations since its launch has continued to ensure that PEPFAR expands it work towards controlling the AIDS epidemic.
Launched with an initial budget of US$ 15 billion over its first five years, PEPFAR has gone on to commit US$ 70 billion to the AIDS response. The funding has had remarkable results: in 2017, PEPFAR was supporting 13.3 million of the 21.7 million people living with HIV on treatment, including 1 million children, and in May 2018 announced that more than 14 million were on treatment.
PEPFAR has funded major HIV prevention programmes. The preventative effect of voluntary medical male circumcision on HIV transmission has been ramped up by funding more than 15.2 million circumcisions since 2003. Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV services have ensured that 2.2 million babies have been born HIV-free, while 85.5 million people have accessed HIV testing services, allowing the people taking the tests to start on treatment or access HIV prevention services to stay HIV-free.
PEPFAR’s work with children orphaned or otherwise made vulnerable by HIV resulted in more than 6.4 million children being supported by PEPFAR in 2017, while the PEPFAR DREAMS programme saw new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women drop by 25–40% in those locations in which the programme was implemented.
On 27 September PEPFAR published its 2018 progress report, showing the progress made one year into its 2017–2020 strategy. PEPFAR supports the AIDS response in 53 countries—of those, 13 are already on track to control their HIV epidemics by 2020, while many more could still do so through scaling up resources and policies to ensure access to HIV prevention and treatment services.
“The contributions of PEPFAR have transformed the lives of people living with or affected by HIV around the world,” said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “We are very proud of our longstanding partnership and look forward to continuing to work closely together to deliver results for men, women and children, particularly the most marginalized.”
