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Intl AIDS program reaches milestone and what it tells us about AIDS in US

One.org

A U-S government program to treat AIDS in foreign countries reached a milestone this past Memorial Day weekend and it has connections to the disease in this country.

Michael Gerson worked in the Bush administration when PEPFARwas created 10 years ago.  The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief was meant to turn around the dealy epidemic in other countries. 

“There were really whole countries in Africa that were living in the shadow of death,”  Gerson recalls.  “In a Country like Zambia at one point there were two teachers dying for every one that was graduating from teaching school”

Gerson, who now is a Washington Post Columnist and a fellow at the ONE campaignfor global disease, witnessed rapid improvement

“It’s just extraordinary that you have 7 million people in sub-Saharan Africa  living with aids instead of dying of AIDS.  I remember visiting in Ethiopia an orphanage where all the children were HIV positive and every single one of them died.  And the seeing the  AIDS drugs start to arrive, and none of the children at that orphanage were dying”

Michael_Gerson_on_PEPFAR_for_web.mp3
Full interview with Michael Gerson on PEPFAR AIDS program, with an important message about how bi-partisan politics can work when sides put aside deep divisions

Early treatment and preventing mother to child transmission, tremendously curbed new infections, leading Gerson to say there could be an AIDS-free generation. 

LOCAL REACTION

Syracuse AIDS Community Resources Director Michael Crinnin is not quite that optimistic. 

“There are so many reasons that people make the choices they make that put at risk for so many diseases including HIV that we don’t want to focus on.”

Crinnin and Gerson agree the U-S has trouble talking about sex and hasn’t solved the poverty issues that exacerbate AIDS.  They say more testing could stop people who don’t even know that have the AIDS virus from spreading it. 

Chris Bolt, Ed.D. has proudly been covering the Central New York community and mentoring students for more than 30 years. His career in public media started as a student volunteer, then as a reporter/producer. He has been the news director for WAER since 1995. Dedicated to keeping local news coverage alive, Chris also has a passion for education, having trained, mentored and provided a platform for growth to more than a thousand students. Career highlights include having work appear on NPR, CBS, ABC and other news networks, winning numerous local and state journalism awards.