the struggle to prevent and treat global HIV/AIDS. As
with polio, HIV anywhere poses a threat to people everywhere. Infections that were later determined to be the result
of HIV were first noted in 1981 in the United States. By
1985, there were people on remote Pacific islands who were
HIV-positive.
Gradual improvements in treatment meant that many
HIV-positive Americans were living far longer and in
better health than at the beginning of the pandemic. In
Africa, however, the outlook had not improved. Many
HIV-positive people were unaware of their status, so the
virus spread rapidly, and very few people could afford
the new antiretroviral (ARV) medications. Several nations saw dramatic drops in life expectancy. Millions of
orphaned children strained the ability of grandparents
and extended family to care for them. There was a new
phenomenon, “child-headed households,” where eldest
siblings as young as 11 struggled to grow food and care
for younger children.
Early in 2003, President George W. Bush announced
the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR),
with initial funding of $15 billion for HIV prevention,
treatment, and care in 15 of the hardest-hit countries. Bush
declared, “We have a chance to achieve a more compassionate world for every citizen. America believes deeply that
everybody has worth, everybody matters…” He said that
helping people with AIDS is part of a legacy of American
compassion, just as the Marshall Plan was.
Today, 40 times as many Africans receive ARV treatment as before PEPFAR began. By the hundreds of thousands, people in their twenties, thirties, and forties have
gotten well enough to return to work and parenting. Far
fewer newborns contract HIV from their mothers. The
AIDS pandemic is not over, but there is hope that the tide
is turning.
PEPFAR’s priority now is to support countries in
strengthening their health care systems to provide HIV
treatment on their own. PEPFAR is part of the U.S. Global
Health Initiative established by President Barack Obama;
the initiative’s other components share this emphasis on
building health care systems able to provide the medical
services needed for a healthy population.
Catholic Relief Services
disease to be eradicated by human effort. Eradication has
prevented further suffering and death from this age-old
plague; as a bonus, the United States saves about $150 million a year because smallpox vaccinations are no longer necessary.
In 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI)
was formed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, Rotary International, UNICEF, and the World
Health Organization. In one generation, the number of cases has been reduced by more than 99 percent. The struggle
to contain polio—reducing the countries where it is endemic from 125 in 1988 to four in 2010—has included the
vaccination of more than 2.5 billion children so far.
A child near Cubal, Angola receives a polio vaccination in the
form of two drops.
Eradication of polio seems within reach. One of the four
countries that still had new polio cases in 2010 was India,
which recently announced a breakthrough: there have been
no new cases for a full year. But eradication is all-or-nothing. China had not seen a new case of polio since 1999 until
the past couple of years, when the virus apparently traveled
from Pakistan. The United States is supporting what will
hopefully be the final push under a new GPEI plan.
Americans are also supporting new campaigns against
other deadly diseases, such as tuberculosis and malaria.
But the most well-known effort of recent years has been
8 million:
35
Ethiopians who needed emergency
assistance during the 2002-2003 drought
who did NOT need it during the equally
severe 2011 drought
3
percent:
proportion of deaths among
young children caused by
malnutrition