This Sunday, December 1, 2019, the international community will recognize World AIDS Day.  Since 2003, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been a proud implementer of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, and a leader in worldwide efforts to control and, ultimately, end the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
 
When PEPFAR began under former President George W. Bush, HIV was a death sentence in many parts of the world.  Through PEPFAR, USAID has helped save more than 18 million lives and prevent millions of HIV infections over the last sixteen years.  Working together with our partners in more than 50 countries, including the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria, USAID has helped moved the pandemic from crisis toward control.  Today, AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 55 percent since their peak in 2004, and new HIV infections have dropped by 40 percent since their peak in 1997.
 
For the first time in modern history, we have the opportunity to control a pandemic without a vaccine or a cure.  Many PEPFAR-supported countries have achieved declines in new HIV infections and maintained, or even decreased, the number of deaths among people who are living with HIV.  Several countries are on pace to control their HIV/AIDS epidemics by 2020. 
 
With support from PEPFAR, governments, civil society, the private sector, and communities in these countries have translated resources into programs that transcend poverty and weak health institutions to reach clients with critical interventions to prevent and treat HIV.  Our investments have strengthened effective, efficient, and sustainable health care, and fostered self-reliance. 
 
As we approach the end of this decade and look ahead to 2020, USAID proudly remains dedicated to achieving our goal to control the HIV/AIDS epidemic.