18 September 2009
Eric Goosby Becomes New U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator
Washington — Progress has been made in curbing the global AIDS epidemic, but the disease continues to cause devastation in countries on every continent and in communities in every country, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says.
AIDS “undermines economies, it widens poverty, it sows the seeds of instability. And for families, its damage is measured in loved ones lost; in nations, it’s measured in potential lost,” Clinton said.
At a September 17 swearing-in ceremony for the new global AIDS coordinator, Dr. Eric Goosby, Clinton said that six years ago the United States launched the largest effort in history to address a single disease through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The program addresses the consequences and implications of that disease.
PEPFAR was launched in 2003 by then President George W. Bush to combat HIV/AIDS globally. Working in partnership with host nations, over 10 years PEPFAR plans to support treatment for at least 3 million people, prevention of 12 million new infections and care for 12 million people, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children.
Clinton said that through PEPFAR, the United States has provided treatment to more than 2 million people, counseling and testing for nearly 57 million, and care to more than 4 million orphans and vulnerable children since the beginning of the program.
“President Obama and I are deeply committed to PEPFAR’s continued success,” she said. “We will work through PEPFAR and with our global partners, to expand access to prevention, care and treatment.”
Clinton said the Obama administration sees PEPFAR as a platform on which to build other essential health services for individuals and families through the president’s Global Health Initiative. (See “Obama Proposes Massive Global Health Initiative.”)
It is part of the reason Goosby was selected by the president to lead the U.S. effort, Clinton said. Goosby is a medical professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and has spent a long career in public health that includes senior posts in the administration of former President Bill Clinton, the secretary’s husband.
At the time of his appointment, Goosby said in a prepared statement that “the PEPFAR program has already saved millions of lives in sub-Saharan Africa and other hard-hit areas around the world. But significant challenges relating to the prevention and treatment of HIV remain,” according to the New York Times.
Clinton said Goosby has been a pioneer in the fight against AIDS since the earliest days of the epidemic’s recognition. “As a young doctor in San Francisco, he was among the very first physicians to treat people with HIV at San Francisco General Hospital, where he helped to integrate HIV treatment programs with methadone clinics,” she said.
Goosby has held a number of positions in the federal government in domestic HIV/AIDS programs and served in the White House National AIDS Policy Office, where he helped establish the Minority AIDS Initiative, Clinton said. Goosby has been the chief executive officer of the Pangea Global AIDS Foundation, which works with governments around the world to help them establish their own sustainable HIV treatment programs.
Goosby joined Clinton in South Africa during her recent trip to sub-Saharan Africa to look at efforts by the new South African government to deal with HIV/AIDS. Goosby also made a recent trip to Zimbabwe to look at renewed efforts by the health sector to increase service-delivery capacity and create sustainable health care systems.
A transcript of Clinton’s remarks is available on America.gov.
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