Ambassador Goosby

U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby has taken to the DipNote blog to broadly outline the future of the Global Health Initiative as well as State’s “PEPFAR Five-Year Strategy”. It’s a pretty helpful insight into how the Administration is going about combating HIV/AIDS in the coming years:

As a result of the remarkable successes the United States Government has achieved with partner nations against HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in the past decade, the GHI seeks to expand existing U.S. Government commitments to broaden the impact of our activities upon broader health systems. As the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, I welcome the GHI commitment to further PEPFAR’s efforts in HIV/AIDS, and I look forward to building upon the tremendous successes PEPFAR has achieved.

Reflecting the principles of the GHI, under our new PEPFAR Five-Year Strategy, PEPFAR is transitioning from an emphasis on an emergency response to a sustainable one. To accomplish this, PEPFAR is working with partner governments to increase their ownership of, and capacity to lead, HIV/AIDS responses in country. Achieving this outcome requires a heightened effort to improve health systems at the country level. PEPFAR will deepen our work with countries to expand their capacity to deliver the health interventions they designate as priorities. As we build health systems, PEPFAR will also use these systems as a platform to directly support treatment for more than four million individuals living with HIV/AIDS, prevention of more than 12 million new infections, and care for more than 12 million individuals affected and infected by HIV/AIDS, including 5 million orphans and vulnerable children.

Cultivating a sustainable response to the range of global health issues is no easy task. The Administration is dedicating unprecedented funding — totaling $63 billion over six years — towards the GHI. This figure is nothing short of remarkable: compared to the preceding six-year period from 2003-2008, this resource commitment for 2009-2014 represents more than a doubling of funds. Included in this in an increase in funding for PEPFAR, allowing us to expand the reach and maximize the impact of our HIV/AIDS programming.

This initiative represents a new and innovative way of doing business for the U.S. Government, promoting coordination among agencies and programs to avoid duplication of efforts and maximize the impact of each dollar invested. As part of GHI, PEPFAR will work closely with other United States Government programs to build the efficiency and effectiveness of national health systems, strengthening their ability to meet the variety of health needs individuals face, including HIV-related needs.

You can read his full post here.

UN Dispatch picked up a great interview conducted by Science Speaks with US Global AIDS Ambassador Eric Goosby in which he talks about the future of PEPFAR, universal access, and a host of other issues.

You can read the full interview here.

As you might know, December 1st is World AIDS Day. To commemorate this annual event, the World Bank will be hosting a forum in Washington, DC on “Linking HIV/AIDS, Food Security and Maternal and Child Health.”

Speakers and panelists will include US Global AIDS Coordinator Eric Goosby, Executive Director of the Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and Malaria Michel Kazatchkine, and many others.

Today is the last day to RSVP, so if you’d like to attend please do so here. It promises to be a really great panel.

Global Health Magazine just posted this interesting interview with Ambassador Eric Goosby, the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator. In it he discusses the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) at length as well as the Obama Administration’s plans for combating the global AIDS epidemic.

Excerpt below, full interview here

Q: What are you spending most of your time on now?

Goosby: The main focus has been in understanding what we’ve done in the first five years in the PEPFAR programs (and) in each location how our response in both prevention and treatment do or do not relate to the demographics of the epidemic in each of these settings. In each city, there are multiple epidemics. Each has their own population, and movement of the virus through that population. And we’re looking at how well our prevention programs understand that movement of the virus, and if they have indeed positioned themselves in front of it.

A second focus … has been appreciating the complexity of our partnering network within the country, in the NGO community in particular. It’s been astonishing to see how well we have done in urban populations.

But now the fragility of these health systems is what I’m most concerned about it. They are as fragile as the NGO who is involved in the delivery, and that is dependent on continued resources from us to support them in that effort.