How the U.S. Program To Fight AIDS Is Tackling COVID-19

By Leigh Hartman

Through PEPFAR, the United States has invested nearly $100 billion to fight HIV/AIDS worldwide, saving 21 million people and preventing millions of HIV infections. It is the largest commitment in history by any nation to address a single disease.

President Biden, on World AIDS Day, December 1, said PEPFAR’s improvements to countries’ health care systems has better enabled nations to tackle COVID-19.

“As we have faced [the] COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve also reaped additional benefits from our decades-long investment in strengthening health systems around the world through PEPFAR,” Biden said.

“By strengthening countries’ abilities to fight AIDS,” he said, “we’ve also improved our collective ability to fight other diseases.”

PEPFAR works in more than 50 countries. The program invests over $5 billion total per year, including $1 billion to strengthen local health systems (PDF, 490 KB). PEPFAR supports programs at more than 70,000 health care facilities and 3,000 laboratories and nearly 300,000 health workers.

In the context of the COVID-19 response, PEPFAR-supported supply chains have been used to deliver personal protective equipment (PPE), freezers for vaccines and other medical supplies, and computer systems for collecting and tracking information in numerous countries.

With an additional $250 million provided through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, PEPFAR has used existing partnerships, systems and processes to efficiently support numerous countries’ response to COVID-19 by:

• Training and deploying thousands of health care workers to respond to COVID-19, as they continue their HIV efforts.
• Identifying COVID-19 hot spots using systems built to detect HIV.
• Delivering tens of millions of COVID-19 test kits, PPE and other essential equipment through HIV health care supply chains.
• Helping countries administer millions of COVID-19 vaccinations and boost vaccine confidence through existing PEPFAR programs and partnerships.

In Zambia, for example, PEPFAR has supported the country in administering nearly 2 million COVID-19 vaccinations. The program began in August 2021 with six high-volume vaccination sites and expanded to include 500 facilities across the country.

PEPFAR’s existing partnerships with community organizations in Eswatini helped that country’s government ramp up vaccination rates, protecting thousands of people.

“PEPFAR has helped countries build a firm local foundation to prevent, detect, and respond to other health threats, and strengthened global health security.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said January 28, on PEPFAR’s 19th anniversary. “These local health systems have served as the backbone of the COVID-19 response across much of Africa.”

—

Previously Published on share.america

You Might Also Like These From The Good Men Project

You Said ‘Race’, but Are You Actually Talking About Race? Understanding the Nonbinary: Are You Confusing Gender With Sex? The Difference Between Compassion for Those With Disabilities & Ableism? ‘Masculinity’ Is Having an Identity Crisis

Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.

All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS.

A $50 annual membership gives you an all access pass. You can be a part of every call, group, class and community.
A $25 annual membership gives you access to one class, one Social Interest group and our online communities.
A $12 annual membership gives you access to our Friday calls with the publisher, our online community.

Register New Account

Log in if you wish to renew an existing subscription.

Username

Email

First Name

Last Name

Password

Password Again

Choose your subscription level

• Yearly - $50.00 - 1 Year
• Monthly - $6.99 - 1 Month

Credit / Debit Card PayPal Choose Your Payment Method

Auto Renew

Subscribe to The Good Men Project Daily Newsletter By completing this registration form, you are also agreeing to our Terms of Service which can be found here.

Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.

—

Photo credit: iStock

The post How the U.S. Program To Fight AIDS Is Tackling COVID-19 appeared first on The Good Men Project.

Original Article