EGPAF Timeline
The foundation that began as three mothers around a kitchen table in 1988 is now the leading global nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating pediatric HIV and AIDS. Browse this timeline to learn how it happened.
1981
Elizabeth Glaser contracts HIV through a blood transfusion during childbirth. Elizabeth and her husband Paul later learn that she unknowingly passed the virus to her children, Ariel and Jake.
1988
After losing Ariel at age seven to AIDS-related illness, Elizabeth creates the Pediatric AIDS Foundation with her friends Susie Zeegen and Susan DeLaurentis. Their goal: Give hope to children and families affected by HIV and AIDS.
1990
Elizabeth and Paul Glaser ask the U.S. Congress to provide funding to test HIV drugs in children. While AZT, a promising drug treatment, had already been approved by the FDA, its potential impact on children was still unknown due to a lack of research.
1991
Professional basketball player Earvin “Magic” Johnson announces his HIV-positive status and retires from the NBA. He credits Elizabeth Glaser with giving him the courage to speak out.
1994
Elizabeth Glaser passes away from AIDS-related illnesses. It would take another nine years, but her vision for pediatric drug research would become a reality in 2003, when the U.S. Congress passes the Pediatric Research Equity Act. This new law dramatically increases the number of drugs tested and labeled for use
in children.
1999
EGPAF enters the global AIDS arena by beginning work to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV in six countries.
2003
The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is launched, allowing EGPAF’s global work and reach to expand. Four years later, more than 25 percent of all HIV-positive pregnant women worldwide who receive medicine to prevent transmission of HIV to their babies do so through EGPAF-supported
programs.
2005
Jake Glaser, today an EGPAF spokesperson and healthy young adult, celebrates his 21st birthday.
2008
EGPAF helps renew the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), authorizing $48 billion in global health programs.
2009
To mark its 20th anniversary, EGPAF launches Join the Moment, a new effort to create a generation free of HIV.
2013
EGPAF is currently supporting more than 5,500 sites around the world. Since EGPAF's international efforts began, EGPAF-supported programs have reached nearly 16 million women with services to prevent the transmission of HIV to their babies; tested nearly 14 million women for HIV; enrolled nearly two million individuals, including more than 152,000 children, into HIV care and support programs; and started more than one million individuals, including nearly 90,000 children, on antiretroviral treatment.
(all data current through September 30, 2012)