HIV/AIDS
Nearly 40 years since the first cases of HIV were reported, the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to cause infection, sickness, and death around the world. Despite recent progress towards controlling the epidemic in some countries, new infections are increasing at alarming rates in some key geographies and among key populations. Around two-thirds of those living with HIV worldwide are on anti-retroviral treatment (ART), which not only can save their lives, but can help achieve the viral suppression that will keep people living with HIV from passing on the virus. While a vaccine and a cure remain elusive, new diagnostic, prevention, and treatment tools have changed the landscape and made ending HIV as a public health threat a possibility. However, doing so will require high degrees of political will, financing, enabling policy, and focused programming. With more than 38 million people globally living with HIV, HIV remains a public health crisis that requires U.S. government leadership, including in its own domestic epidemic.
The CSIS Global Health Policy Center is working with leaders from the HIV/AIDS community to provide in-depth analysis of U.S., international, and multilateral approaches to addressing HIV and to produce actionable policy recommendations on U.S. HIV leadership.
Featured Project
The CSIS Global Health Policy Center has embarked on a year-long project to assess the impact of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief’s (PEPFAR) DREAMS partnership. DREAMS (Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored, and Safe) addresses adolescent girls and young women’s (AGYW) substantially higher risk of contracting HIV. CSIS’s GHPC aims to better understand the progress that has been made to date for AGYW, the remaining gaps and challenges, and the rising threats posed by Covid-19.
GHPC is also working on the issue of pediatric HIV. Treating children living with HIV remains a formidable barrier to progress against the global pandemic. There are currently 1.7 million children under the age of 15 living with HIV, yet only 54 percent were receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2018, leaving 782,000 children without treatment and vulnerable to AIDS-related deaths. We are focusing on the policy issues affecting access to pediatric HIV medications and the opportunities for better supporting children living with HIV within the context of Covid-19. Building on our extensive analytic work and policy analysis, this work will look at the challenges to implementing new HIV technology at scale and highlight innovation that can address those challenges.
