Statement from the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board

Following its annual meeting last week (November 2-3, 2021), the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board wishes to recognize the remarkable value of U.S. investments to combat HIV/AIDS through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Moreover, it was clear at this year’s meeting that PEPFAR has simultaneously strengthened health systems and built global health security capacity in low- and middle-income countries that are proving vital for both responding effectively to HIV and combatting COVID-19 globally.

As members of the PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board, we wish to recognize PEPFAR for safely operating HIV service delivery programs during COVID-19, enabling 18 years of dramatic gains in HIV to be preserved, protected, and accelerated while, at the same time, leveraging PEPFAR systems to support partner governments to respond to COVID-19. We recognize the pivotal role of our Global Health Partners, Global Fund, GAVI, and UNAIDS amongst others; host country governments, civil society and faith-based organizations, and communities, citizens, people living with HIV; INGOs, Private Sector and the research partners who have enabled, implemented and sustained this work on the ground and who have suffered the challenges of the last two years and continue to do so in the face of persistent global inequities. We also wish to applaud and endorse the approach to attaining and sustaining epidemic control and the additional focus on gender and broader equity that is emerging in the Country Operational Planning 2022 guidance development.

It has been especially gratifying to observe PEPFAR’s essential role in strategically leveraging and utilizing its health care delivery platforms to contribute to the COVID-19 response and global health security worldwide.  PEPFAR, as the largest U.S. global health assistance program, immediately responded to COVID-19 by taking a leadership role in developing and disseminating technical guidance to partners around the world and leveraging the wide range of PEPFAR platforms to the COVID response. The lessons learned from HIV/AIDS with respect to implementing and scaling up evidence-based prevention, treatment, and community support programs, have now proven invaluable to a new pandemic. We believe that this reveals the inherent value of US investments in PEPFAR as a basis on which to build and expand to meet the needs of HIV, TB, COVID-19, and future global health threats.

These achievements and ways forward reflect long-standing bipartisan support for PEPFAR and the outstanding leadership of Dr. Angeli Achrekar, Acting U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator during these past 20 months. We thank her and her team for their continued hard work and dedication during very trying times. We also applaud the Biden Administration’s nomination of Dr. John Nkengasong as Ambassador-at-Large and Coordinator of United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS Globally. Dr. Nkengasong is an inspired choice for continuing and strengthening PEPFAR into the future.

PEPFAR Scientific Advisory Board

David Allen, M.D., M.P.H.
Judith D. Auerbach, Ph.D.
Peter Berman, Ph.D.
Chris Beyrer, M.D., M.P.H.
Connie Celum, M.D., M.P.H.
Judith Currier, M.D.
Carlos del Rio, M.D.
Roopa Dhatt, M.D., M.P.A.
Lisa Fitzpatrick, M.D., M.P.H., M.P.A.
Sofia Gruskin, J.D., M.I.A.
Mark Harrington, B.A.
Musimbi Kanyoro, Ph.D.
Quarraisha Abdool Karim, Ph.D.
Etienne Karita, M.D. M.Sc. M.P.H.
Jennifer Kates, Ph.D.
Lejeune Lockett, D.M., M.S.P.H.
Ruth Macklin, Ph.D.
Celia Maxwell, M.D.
Kenneth Mayer, M.D.
Jesse Milan, Jr., J.D.
Greg Millett, M.P.H.
Angela Mushavi, M.D.
Christine Nabiryo, MBHchB, MmedPH
Nyambura Njoroge, Ph.D.
Jean William Pape, M.D.
David Peters, M.D.
Rev. Edwin C. Sanders, II
Fredrick Sawe, MBChB, MMED
Carl E Schmid II, M.B.A
Susan Swindells, M.B.B.S.
Carole Treston, R.N., M.P.H.
Mitchell Warren, B.A.
John Wiesman, Dr.P.H., M.P.H.

For more information on PEPFAR’s Scientific Advisory Board members, please visit the bio page.