All of you have been involved in our HIV efforts at a pivotal time. Under Admiral Giroir’s leadership, with help from so many other HHS leaders, and with the support of President Trump, we have set in motion the plan that I believe will bring the HIV epidemic in America to an end, representing one of the great public health victories our country has ever seen.
Thank you all for welcoming me to address PACHA today, and thank you to everyone who is tuning in via our livestream.
I want to begin by thanking each and every one of you for your work on PACHA over the last couple of years, and I particularly want to recognize the leadership of Carl Schmid and John Wiesman.
Beyond your work on this committee, all of you play important roles in the fight against HIV in so many ways, whether as activists, researchers, innovators, patient advocates, or, indeed, some combination of several of those things!
Not only have you played this dual role throughout your time on PACHA, but now you’ve had to continue these roles during the COVID-19 pandemic. That meant continuing PACHA efforts via remote meetings and working, in your day jobs, to ensure Americans living with or at risk for HIV still have access to the services they need during the pandemic.
Please accept my heartfelt thanks and gratitude for your work during this year especially.
While this year has been extremely challenging time in public health, our commitment to the President’s plan to end the HIV epidemic in America has never wavered.
We have the highly effective HIV treatment and prevention methods we need to end the epidemic, we have the data that provides a roadmap for how we need to use them.
This year, we awarded the first round of implementation funds to the 57 jurisdictions we identified as accounting for more than half of new HIV cases in the U.S. This year, two large-scale NIH clinical trials found that a long-acting form of injectable PrEP was safe and more effective than daily oral PREP. This good news is a promising sign for the expansion of our tools to prevent HIV transmissions in the future.
Ending the HIV Epidemic programs, as well as our global efforts through PEPFAR, have adapted and innovated throughout the pandemic, continuing to deliver services while minimizing the risk of exposure to COVID-19. We’ve worked to expand the use of telehealth, provide rapid and mail-in HIV self-tests and follow-up care, offer drive-through testing, and deliver remote access to prevention services. The theme of 2020’s World AIDS Day recognizes the resilience of the HIV community, and we have seen that like never before over the past year.
This year, as Admiral Giroir mentioned, we also launched the “I’m Ready” campaign to increase enrollment in the Ready, Set, PrEP program, which expands access to PrEP medications for those without prescription drug coverage.
The progress we’ve seen so far on the EHE initiative simply wouldn’t be possible without the engagement of PACHA and so many others in the HIV community.
Ending the HIV epidemic requires deeply engaging with people who live with the virus and the communities most at risk for it, and we have endeavored to do that at every stage of our efforts.
That engagement is important in so many ways, but especially when it comes to combating stigma, which we know can be an even greater challenge when it intersects with the historical marginalization of particular populations, including African-Americans, Latinos and gay men. Working hand-in-hand with these communities is an essential part of ending the HIV epidemic.
I also want to recognize the contributions that the HIV community of advocates, infectious disease doctors and nurses, outreach workers and HIV researchers have made to the fight against COVID-19.
Lessons we’ve learned from combating HIV and engaging vulnerable communities have helped inform our pandemic response, and NIH in particular is leveraging its HIV research infrastructure and expertise to conduct critical clinical trials on COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics. We also continue to prioritize and support the development of a safe and effective HIV vaccine, and some of platforms used to develop COVID-19 vaccine candidates originated in that HIV vaccine research.
All of you have been involved in our HIV efforts at a pivotal time. Under Admiral Giroir’s leadership, with help from so many other HHS leaders, and with the support of President Trump, we have set in motion the plan that I believe will bring the HIV epidemic in America to an end, representing one of the great public health victories our country has ever seen.
Each of you should be incredibly proud to have played a crucial role in launching this effort. I ask every one of you to remain engaged in this national effort over the coming decade, and I commit to doing the same myself.
When I reflect on my time here as Secretary, it’s natural to try to discern what things we’ve accomplished that would not have happened but for contributions I was able to make. Two of those initiatives are in the public health realm: the impending rollout of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines in record time, and the design and launch of our plan to end the HIV epidemic, including personally securing the President’s support for and endorsement of this initiative.
I am so gratified that we’ve been able to launch this historic public health initiative together, and I am personally grateful that you have helped make it possible.
Thank you for what you have done in the battle against HIV for so many years, thank you for what you have done in partnership with this administration, and thank you for what you will do in the coming years as we make more progress together.
We have such a bright future ahead—thank you for playing a part in making that future possible.
On December 2, 2020, the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) unanimously passed a resolution* extending its great appreciation to HHS Secretary Azar ADM Brett P. Giroir, MD, Assistant Secretary for Health; Anthony Fauci, MD, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health; Robert R. Redfield, MD, Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Thomas J. Engels, Administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration; Elinore F. McCance-Katz, MD, PhD, Assistant Secretary of Mental Health and Substance Use at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration; RADM Michael D. Weahkee, Director of the Indian Health Service, for their roles in conceptualizing the Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative and leadership with this historic effort.
To read the full text of the resolution, visit here*
*This content is in the process of Section 508 review. If you need immediate assistance accessing this content, please submit a request to [email protected].
