Although the Bush administration is going to leave Barack Obama a nation, which is locked in two wars, is struggling to cope with the worst economic crisis since the 1930s and has a budget deficit close to one trillion dollars, it appears that the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) has been a major achievement.

 

The program succeeded to exceed its goals of supporting treatment for 2 million HIV-infected people and care for 10 million people living with HIV/AIDS, including orphans and vulnerable children.

 

Five years after the program started, “thanks to strong partnership between the American people and the people of host nations around the world, we’ve seen what was once thought to be impossible become truly possible,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said January 12 during a briefing at the State Department in Washington to release the report.

 

The US government has provided $18.8 billion for treatment and prevention of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, since the beginning of the program. Just last year, lawmakers voted to reauthorize the plan and more than double the funding to as much as $48 billion during the next five years to fight global HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

 

The program will also support training for at least 140,000 new health care workers in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, according to the report. Also, it supported HIV counseling and testing for nearly 57 million people worldwide and tuberculosis treatment for more than 395,000 HIV-infected patients.

 

According to a United Nations report released in July, deaths from AIDS worldwide fell 10 percent in 2007 as more patients gained access to drug combinations that can keep the virus under control.

 

The program is expected to continue its work during the next administration under President Barack Obama, as he was one of its 16 co-sponsors in the Senate.

 

“So clearly there's strong support” for PEPFAR in the next administration, Dr. Mark Dybul, the U.S. global AIDS coordinator, said.