World AIDS Day Conference

It is a real pleasure to be here.

The only important personal sacrifice I have made in taking on this assignment is that I do not see my 8 young grandchildren with nearly the frequency I would like. All of them are very healthy--and are a reminder to me of those who are not. And so on World AIDS Day, it is a particular honor for me to be among people who have brought healing and hope to so many children around the world, where both are in such short supply. And I would like to say a special thank you to Kate Carr for inviting me to be with you--and for all she does. As we have launched the President’s Emergency Plan during the past year, Kate has become a valued partner, advisor, and friend, and I’m grateful for her help.

Some of you may have heard me tell the story of my experience with a little girl in Mozambique who is present in my mind as I go about my work each day.

I met this little 5-year old as she sat on the edge of a mattress on the bare dirt floor of a small house, watching her die. Her father and most of her relatives had already been lost to AIDS. When I asked the home-care volunteer who was with me what would happen to her when her mother was gone, she told me they honestly did not know.

This little girl, for me, captured the heart of the AIDS tragedy. She embodied all the fear, mourning, and hopelessness that this disease is leaving in its path. Doing something for her, and for the hundreds of thousands like her, gives me a sense of urgency every day.

The picture in my mind of that little girl reminds me that over 8,000 people like her mother are dying every day, often leaving behind the same heartbreak and tragedy. I know many of you likely have an equally compelling experience that drives you forward in the fight against global AIDS--and this little girl is mine.

The President’s Emergency Plan is an important part of America’s effort to bring hope to places where there is mostly hopelessness. And the need for hope is never more poignant than when it involves the devastation AIDS is wreaking in the lives of children all over the world. Let me take a moment to briefly recap some of the basic facts about the President’s Emergency Plan.

This initiative is the largest commitment ever by a single nation toward an international health issue focused on a single disease--a 5-year, $15 billion, multifaceted approach to combating the disease in more than 100 countries around the world.

In 2004, we contributed about as much as the rest of the world’s donor governments combined--$2.4 billion.

We have requested, and expect to receive, even more for the coming year.

Placing a special emphasis on 15 focus nations in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia, representing approximately half of the world’s infections, the President's Emergency Plan expects to support treatment for 2 million HIV-infected people, prevent 7 million new infections, and support care for 10 million individuals, including orphans, infected and affected by the disease in the 15 focus nations.

I know the specific focus of your conference this morning is the link between research and implementation. When we think of research, we often think of the importance of biological and drug research--and our program, and those of many other donors, would not exist today without the incredible contributions of the scientific communities involved.

But as those of us who are involved in programs and delivery know, operations research--the knowledge about what makes an HIV prevention, treatment or care program a success in a given context--is just as fundamental to what we’re doing.

The President’s Emergency Plan is making an unprecedented effort to gather strategic information on our own efforts so we can make adjustments along the way. We made a commitment to use best practices in our strategy and implementation, and we’re collecting and using the research needed to make that a reality. We hope the lessons we learn and the best practices we adopt will be of value not just to us, but to all those who are working on the ground to beat back AIDS.

As we implement our programs, we are working with host-country governments and our partners in-country, supporting national strategies and building on more than 20 years of work by America to fight HIV/AIDS.

Already, we have thousands of programs up and running around the world, and we are particularly proud that over 61% of our partners in the 15 focus nations are indigenous organizations with roots in the countries where we are working. This development and growth of local capabilities is, I believe, one of the keys to the sustainability of our efforts.

The Glaser Foundation has been an enthusiastic and effective partner on a number of our projects. As we moved ahead into the implementation of the Emergency Plan, it was essential to the sense of urgency involved that we be able to work with trusted experienced partners to provide prevention, care and treatment in the most severely affected places. I’m so pleased the Glaser Foundation stepped forward to partner with us, bringing the experience and the knowledge needed to help us move ahead without delay.

The President's Emergency Plan has just received the first significant data from the field on the number of patients receiving ARV treatment, and we are currently working with staff at the Global Fund, as well as The World Health Organization and The United Nations Joint Programme on AIDS, moving toward being able to announce comprehensive, accurate and coordinated treatment numbers at the end of January. This level of close cooperation on common data between the bilateral and international partners is without precedent. We are very excited by what we have seen in the data, which we believe puts us on track to meet the President’s expectations that we support treatment for over 200,000 people in the 15 focus nations by June, 2005--the end of the program's first full year of treatment program implementation.

In meeting this interim goal, we will not only contribute to more than doubling the number of persons receiving treatment in all of sub-Saharan Africa within a 1-year period, but we will also be on track toward our longer term goal of having 2,000,000 people under treatment in the 15 focus countries by the end of the first 5 years--in 2008. The Glaser Foundation has been one of our important partners in achieving this progress.

When we think about antiretroviral therapy, I think many tend to think of adults. But as the Glaser Foundation helps us remember, many children need treatment as well, and we can’t simply treat them as if they were miniature adults. It takes expertise to treat children correctly. We need to always keep that in mind.

As it happens, I leave again tomorrow for Africa, and I’ll have an opportunity to visit the Sinikithemba (SIN–E–KA–THEM’–BA) program at McCord Hospital in Durban, South Africa.

With funding from the American people, Glaser is establishing a program there to treat HIV-positive children and their families with antiretroviral drugs. It’s a great example of a partner’s strengths enabling us to meet our goals--which in this case means saving children’s lives. I am really looking forward to seeing yet another example of the Glaser Foundation’s good work first-hand.

The Glaser Foundation is a key partner in another important element of the Emergency Plan—helping restore the hope of HIV-positive pregnant mothers--and I know Dr. Wilfert will be discussing this in depth later this morning.

Let me simply say that some of the happiest conversations I have had in this job, are with those women, living with HIV, who have been given the gift of a healthy baby, and the joy of dreaming about that child’s future. Those conversations define hope. And now we need to ensure those mothers also have hope for themselves. After all, the most effective orphan programs we can possibly put in place are the ones that keep the mothers alive in the first place.

We have dramatically ramped up our efforts to provide drug therapy and intensive counseling to prevent mother-to-child transmission--during the period leading up to the launch of the Emergency Plan, and now as a fully integrated component of all that we are doing. In the first 18 months of this intensive effort, we quickly trained 14,700 health workers and built capacity at over 900 different health care sites to prevent mother-to-child transmission in just 18 months. That snapshot was taken 8 months ago, and the numbers are even greater now.

In all three of the countries I’ll be visiting in the next 10 days–Tanzania, Kenya, and South Africa–and in others besides those, the Glaser Foundation is providing PMTCT services funded by the American people. We’re working together to foster linkages between PMTCT and antiretroviral therapy, so an increasing number of mothers are getting treatment themselves even as we prevent infection of their babies.

As Americans, we can all be proud of what our nation is doing to face this epidemic--both at the governmental level, through the President’s Emergency Plan, and through private charities such as the Glaser Foundation.

There is much more yet to do, but together, I truly believe that we WILL meet this challenge, and we WILL turn the tide against HIV/AIDS. Thank you very much.