Health Policy Watch: Selection Of New UNAIDS Executive Director Raises Larger Questions About Agency’s Purpose & Direction
“A sensitive, closed-door selection of the new executive director for UNAIDS has kicked up a noisy social media debate among a number of leading global health figures, who questioned whether a separate bureaucracy for one disease, founded at the height of the AIDS epidemic, remains justified today — when bigger global health threats now loom. … Rather than remaining in disease silos, they say, global health institutions should be driving countries towards more comprehensive systems of universal health coverage — which is a key strategic focus of the global health community…” (Fletcher, 6/26).