U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief Launches Five-Year Strategy

Launched on World AIDS Day, the Five-Year Strategy of the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) outlines the high-level direction of the program for its next phase. This strategy reflects lessons learned in the first five years of the program, expands existing commitments around service delivery, and places a heightened emphasis on sustainability. During its next phase, PEPFAR will:

• Transition from an emergency response to promotion of sustainable country programs;
• Strengthen partner government capacity to lead the response to this epidemic and other health demands;
• Expand prevention, care, and treatment in both concentrated and generalized epidemics;
• Integrate and coordinate HIV/AIDS programs with broader global health and development programs to maximize impact on health systems; and
• Invest in innovation and operations research to evaluate impact, improve service delivery and maximize outcomes.

In addition to these overarching goals, PEPFAR's Five-Year Strategy announces new targets for the program around prevention, care and support, treatment, and sustainability. As a component of the Global Health Initiative, PEPFAR will be carefully and purposefully integrated with other health and development programs.

To access the full PEPFAR Five-Year Strategy, please visit www.PEPFAR.gov/strategy/. Annexes to the PEPFAR Strategy are forthcoming, and will provide additional information about specific program areas.

Launched in 2003 by former President George W. Bush, PEPFAR is the largest effort by any nation to combat a single disease. PEPFAR has achieved remarkable success in expanding access to HIV prevention, care and treatment in low-resource settings. During its first phase, PEPFAR supported the provision of treatment to more than 2 million people, care to more than 10 million people, including more than 4 million orphans and vulnerable children, and prevention of mother-to-child treatment services during nearly 16 million pregnancies.