Trump puts time limit to end HIV

COMMITMENT: BEAT DISEASE ‘IN AMERICA AND BEYOND’

Initiative being put to government expected to avert 250 000 infections.

Washington

President Donald Trump’s call for a bipartisan commitment to eradicate HIV in the US within a decade has been welcomed by experts and advocacy organisations, even as major challenges remain.

Addressing Congress during the annual State of the Union speech, Trump hailed what he called recent breakthroughs which “have brought a once-distant dream within reach”.

He said: “My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years. Together, we will defeat Aids in America and beyond.”

The announcement was reminiscent of predecessor George W Bush’s announcement at the same venue in 2003 of his President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (Pepfar), a $15 billion (R202 billion today) programme which was considered a great success.

Though Trump’s plan doesn’t yet have a dollar figure, his Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar later added details to the president’s rhetoric: the initiative would reduce new infections by 75% in the next five years and 90% in the next 10, averting 250 000 cases in that span.

Such lofty ambitions would require a major acceleration of current efforts: some 38 000 people were infected with HIV in the US in 2017, according to government statistics.

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection can lead, over time, to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (Aids).

“We believe that it’s possible to end all new infections, in fact we believe it could be ended by 2025,” Jesse Milan jun, the chief executive of Aids United, said.

The Aids Institute’s Michael Ruppal added: “This initiative, if properly implemented and resourced, can go down in history as one of the most significant achievements of his presidency.”

There is a broad consensus among experts that the pathway towards elimination involves boosting prevention in the most at-risk communities. –

Possible to end all new infections ... by 2025