Here at SIECUS, we welcome the confirmation of Dr. Eric Goosby by the Senate last Friday as the United States Global AIDS Coordinator.  President Obama has tapped a strong and well-respected leader in the field, and we believe that Dr. Goosby has a broad mandate to institute the needed reforms to the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) that will ensure that we continue to gain ground against the global HIV/AIDS pandemic.

 

Our international policy experts at SIECUS have spent years tracking the impact that PEPFAR has had on HIV prevention, care and treatment globally, especially in the fifteen PEPFAR focus countries.  We recently released findings from research that our experts conducted on the ground in Zambia, learning lessons about what efforts are working and what is failing.  We are confident that Dr. Goosby’s leadership will bring a sharper focus on those programs and initiatives that are working, and cull out approaches which have proven to be unsuccessful.

 

We sincerely hope that Dr. Goosby will institute a more comprehensive approach to HIV/AIDS prevention on the ground to ensure the greatest efficacy and best use of increasingly scarce resources.  While the treatment measures that PEPFAR has instituted have been some of the most lifesaving developments in the fight on HIV/AIDS, the shortcomings within PEPFAR’s prevention portfolio demand remedy.  It is long past time to bring integrated, evidence-based prevention into the fight against global AIDS, and Dr. Goosby is the right man at the right time to do this.

 

We look forward to working with Dr. Goosby, and the entire Obama administration, in a spirit of cooperation and teamwork over the coming years to make sure that PEPFAR can fulfill its potential to be the life-saving prevention initiative that turns the tide in the global struggle against HIV/AIDS.