A Big Push Toward an AIDS-Free Generation
Posted by
Robert Yule
Washington, D.C.
September 28, 2012
This week Foundation President and CEO Charles Lyons participated in the online discussion
“Eradicating AIDS,” hosted by HuffPost Live and moderated by Huffington Post contributor
Abby Huntsman.
The live talk was sparked by a blog he wrote for the Huffington Post earlier this week entitled
“Making a Campaign Commitment to an AIDS-Free Generation.”
In the article, he wrote about the strong show of U.S. leadership at this summer’s International AIDS Conference in Washington around ending pediatric AIDS – but the disappearance of this issue from our political debate in the current election season.
“We won't be able to achieve an AIDS-free generation without the public support that comes from knowing it is within our grasp, and the political will to make it happen,” he argued.
EGPAF President and CEO Charles Lyons.
The blog was a part of the “The Big Push” campaign, led by the Global Fund and the Huffington Post to draw attention to three achievable global health goals: “No child born with HIV, no deaths from mosquito bites, and tuberculosis (TB) treatment for all.”
The campaign was launched as the UN General Assembly convened in New York this week, urging decision-makers to make one more big push to conquer these diseases.
Vocal supporters include Arianna Huffington, Bill Gates, Bono, Ban Ki-moon, Charlize Theron, Chelsea Clinton, Desmond Tutu, and Jeffrey Sachs – many of whom have added their photos to a digital wall with messages of support for the fight against the three diseases.
On the HuffPost Live chat, Chip Lyons was joined by a diverse panel of experts all working toward the end of AIDS, including:
• Carl Dieffenbach, Ph.D., Director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
• Dr. Patricia Fast, Chief Medical Officer for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI)
• Mitchell Warren, Executive Director of AVAC: Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention
• Olusoji Adeyi, Sector Manager for Health, Nutrition and Population the World Bank
The discussion covered scale-up of a range of tools to fight the global AIDS epidemic – including prevention of mother-to-child transmission, treatment as prevention, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and voluntary male circumcision – as well as the state of research toward a vaccine and a cure.
Click here to watch an archived video of the live discussion, and add your own message of support for “The Big Push” here.