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Written by Lisa Neff, Staff writer
Dec 1, 2011
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks on the future of the global HIV/AIDS pandemic at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., on Nov. 8. – Photo: U.S. State Department
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called on the world to create an AIDS-free generation, setting a monumental policy priority in a speech to scientists at the National Institutes for Health prior to World AIDS Day.
"Creating an AIDS-free generation has never been a policy priority for the U.S. government until today, because this goal would have been unimaginable just a few years ago," Clinton said in the highly promoted address at the NIH in Bethesda, Md., on Nov. 8.
Clinton selected the NIH as the site for the speech because, she said, its scientists have conducted frontline, groundbreaking work on HIV/AIDS over the past 30 years. And the secretary sought to emphasize science.
Clinton said in 30 years a lot has been learned about the virus – how it hides from the immune system and mutates in the body; about the impact – an estimated 30 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses since 1981 and an estimated 34 million people are living with HIV; and about treatment and prevention – AIDS remains an incurable disease, but becoming infected with HIV is no longer a death sentence.
"HIV may be with us well into the future," the secretary said. "But the disease that it causes need not be."
Clinton said an AIDS-free generation meant living in a world in which "virtually no children are born with the virus; second, as these children become teenagers and adults, they are at far lower risk of becoming infected than they would be today thanks to a wide range of prevention tools; and third, if they do acquire HIV, they have access to treatment that helps prevent them from developing AIDS and passing the virus on to others."
The state department has identified three key scientific interventions to achieving the goal:
• Prevention of mother-to-child transmission. One in seven new infections worldwide occur through mother-to-child transmission. Clinton said, "We can get that number to zero."
• Voluntary male circumcision. The state department says this low-cost procedure reduces the risk of female-to-male transmission of HIV by more than 60 percent.
• Treatment as prevention. Effective treatment of a person living with HIV reduces the risk of transmission to a partner by 96 percent.
Public health advocates hailed Clinton's speech, which was punctuated by lengthy rounds of applause.
"For 30 years, the world has been ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, but for the first time in three decades, we have the tools to put a stop to it," said Daniel Montoya of the National AIDS Council in Washington, D.C. "We owe it to ourselves and future generations to see that through.
In another cabinet-level address in advance of World AIDS Day, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the U.S. Conference on AIDS in November that fully implementing the Affordable Care Act is crucial to expanding treatment and care for people living with HIV/AIDS.
About 13 percent of people living with HIV/AIDS are privately insured. The ACA, which is set for a U.S. Supreme Court review, would improve access to care through its Medicaid expansion provision and insurance exchanges. The ACA also would make it illegal for insurers to discriminate based on pre-existing conditions, including HIV/AIDS.
