PEPFAR: America’s Response to the Global Emergency of HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria

ONE members were an important part of a broad coalition helping to pass PEPFAR. Support from leaders of both parties and the president indicated early promise for passing PEPFAR quickly. But compromise and passage in the House were followed by deadlock in the Senate when a small group of senators place a hold on the legislation.

ONE members were tireless in lobbying key senators and the Senate leadership to lift that hold, helping get it to the floor in the Senate where amendments that would have weakened the bill were defeated. As a result, this historic commitment to fight global AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria went to the president for his signature in the form ONE members worked for months to make possible.

Over the next five years, if fully funded, this reauthorized PEPFAR will stop 12 million cases of HIV infection, double the number of people on antiretroviral treatment to 3 million people (including 450,000 children), and provide care for five million children who have been orphaned by AIDS.