Forbes: 15 Years Later: How Well Are We Doing Addressing AIDS
Bill Frist, former U.S. Senate majority leader and founder and chair of Hope Through Healing Hands

“This World AIDS Day, we celebrate the astounding progress made in the past 15 years! … PEPFAR is about more than just diagnostics and drugs. PEPFAR is the flagship example of strategic health diplomacy, the idea that by addressing global health, America advances its own national strategic interests. Our investments in health serve America as well as the countries we help. This World AIDS Day, there is still work to be done. … It is our privilege and responsibility to continue creating a future where there was none before” (12/1).

STAT: To end HIV/AIDS, invest in community workers and other health care providers
Vanessa Kerry, CEO and co-founder of Seed Global Health

“…[T]he standard of HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care remains woefully uneven because we simply have not invested enough in the people who serve on the front lines of communities hardest hit by, and most vulnerable to, HIV/AIDS. … We must invest where we have not fully ever done so before: in health workers on the front lines of HIV. We should: Invest in their training. … Invest in their mentorship. … Invest in their well-being. … Invest in retaining them in hard-to-reach places. … By doing that we not only create an opportunity for equity and progress, but also a path towards greater empathy, understanding, and compassion as better-equipped providers offer stronger, more confident care to the people in their communities” (11/30).

Washington Post: On World AIDS Day, why the politics of AIDS is so important
Amy S. Patterson, professor of politics at University of the South and author, Mark Daku, assistant professor of political science at Texas Christian University

“…From the outset, AIDS has been intensely ‘political.’ Power and inequalities shape vulnerability to HIV infection, and representation and decision-making processes affect resource allocation and policies. To end the AIDS epidemic by 2030, a goal set by the Joint U.N. Programme on HIV/AIDS, means analyzing the politics of the disease. … [M]eeting this goal will require learning from experiences in responding to the disease, including paying closer attention to socioeconomic, gender, and political inequalities. … [A] commitment to greater power and representation of marginalized groups may be more important than ever” (12/1).

USA Today: The AIDS crisis is not over. We need help from Trump and Congress to continue the fight.
Gayle E. Smith, president and CEO of The ONE Campaign

“…[U.S.] Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should ensure that his budget proposal is consistent with President Trump’s campaign commitments, continues funding the Global Fund at one-third of its total, and includes full funding for PEPFAR. Requesting an amount of money that supports a robust pledge to the Global Fund in the president’s budget is the best way to send a strong signal to other donors and ensure that other countries contribute their fair share. For the past 15 years, Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals have stood as one in a decidedly non-partisan act of generosity and self-enlightenment. And as a result, we have made historic progress in the fight against AIDS. But we still have a long way to go. Our immense progress should be a feather in our cap, not our Achilles heel. Programs like the Global Fund and PEPFAR have made winning this fight possible. Complacency will make losing it inevitable” (11/30).

Additional opinion pieces discussing World AIDS Day are available from:

ABC News: World AIDS Day 2018: How far we’ve come and how far we still have to go (Kreafle, 12/1).

The Hill: We’re advancing to a cure after 30 years of HIV/AIDS treatment (Heimer, 11/30).

The Hill: Testing, knowing, treating — Taking action this 30th World AIDS Day (Tang, 12/1).

The Conversation: AIDS treatment has progressed, but without a vaccine, suffering still abounds (Miller, 11/30).

The Conversation: World AIDS Day: Let’s stop criminalizing HIV status (Timothy, 11/28).

Thomson Reuters Foundation: PrEP is the most effective HIV prevention tool we have (Hodson, 12/1).