Call-out to Congress on World AIDS Day

At the start of the century, Africa was in freefall due to AIDS. Mortality rates were skyrocketing. Coffin-making was a major industry. It was horrific. Thankfully, a major breakthrough in the battle against HIV/AIDS emerged in 2003, when President George W. Bush established the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Its mission -- to stem the scourge of HIV/AIDS, especially in Africa, where an HIV diagnosis essentially was a death sentence.

Sunday is World AIDS Day. Now in its 21st year, PEPFAR is regarded as a phenomenal success. PEPFAR has saved more than 25 million lives – twice the number of people living in Illinois. More than 5.5 million of those are children, born HIV-free.

Today, PEPFAR provides life-saving treatment to more than half of those living with HIV today worldwide. Households once again are headed by healthy, working adults rather than by orphans struggling to keep things afloat. The numbers that cement PEPFAR’s legacy as one of the most successful government programs in history powerfully justify its continuation.

Perhaps even more powerful is the threat to progress that PEPFAR’s absence would create. One study indicates that, without PEPFAR, AIDS-related deaths could multiply by more than 400% by 2030. The number of children orphaned by AIDS could double. Given global interconnectedness, an increase in new HIV infections anywhere in the world puts all countries at risk for a resurgence. This is not the future I want for the world. On this, I hope we all can agree.

I’m asking Senators Duckworth and Durbin and all Illinois congressional representatives to support a clean, five-year reauthorization of PEPFAR so this critically important program can continue to save lives and move us closer to a day where everyone, everywhere is safe from the threat of HIV/AIDS.

Jan Lohs

Inverness