Surgeon General David Satcher Notes Progress, Future Challenges in Global Fight Against AIDS
The newest and "most promising" public-private partnership focused on fighting HIV/AIDS is the U.N. Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher writes in a commentary in today's issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. In his final column as surgeon general, Satcher praises the progress made in fighting HIV/AIDS around the world in the past two years. "[T]hrough increasing political commitment, the international community has 'broken the silence,' and it has begun to 'bridge the gap' by moving beyond words to deeds," Satcher writes. Public-private partnerships between governments, international organizations, nongovernmental organizations and businesses will be crucial to mobilizing the global anti-AIDS effort, he adds. Satcher notes that framing AIDS efforts as "a 'choice' between prevention and treatment represent[s] a false dichotomy" because prevention and treatment are "mutually reinforcing." Health officials, governments and organizations must focus on prevention efforts such as education, voluntary testing and counseling while also emphasizing treatment issues such as palliative care, antiretroviral therapy and treatment for opportunistic infections, Satcher concludes (Satcher, Journal of the American Medical Association, 11/28).
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