[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 162 (2016), Part 11]
[Senate]
[Page 15551]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             WORLD AIDS DAY

  Mr. CARDIN. Mr. President, today I wish to discuss World AIDS Day. 
Thirty years ago, the National Academy of Sciences's Institute of 
Medicine issued a report calling for a ``massive media, educational and 
public health campaign to curb the spread of the HIV infection.'' The 
global community heeded that call and today, on World AIDS Day, we 
celebrate progress that we have made in treating and preventing HIV/
AIDS both at home and abroad and recommit ourselves to creating an 
AIDS-free generation.
  Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to visit an HIV/AIDS clinic 
in Namibia supported by the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, 
PEPFAR, and the Global Fund. While there, I met a 30-year-old man named 
Simon who said he would not be alive without the international 
community's HIV/AIDS assistance. While the individual stories of people 
like Simon are a testament to the hard-fought progress this global 
response has achieved, the aggregate impact of our efforts cannot be 
understated. PEPFAR has been a bipartisan success story that began with 
a strong commitment by President George W. Bush and grew under 
President Obama. It must continue to have broad-based support in a 
Trump administration and in the 115th Congress, so we can keep making 
inroads against this pernicious disease.
  Since 2005, AIDS-related deaths have fallen by 45 percent globally. 
In Africa, new HIV infections have declined 14 percent since 2010, 
including a 66 percent reduction in new infections in children in the 
region. And today, 18.2 million men, women, and children worldwide are 
on antiretroviral therapy, double the number of people who had access 
just 5 years ago.
  Nevertheless, there remains more work to be done. In my home State of 
Maryland, there were 1,334 new HIV diagnoses in 2015, ranking it the 
third highest adult HIV diagnosis rate per capita in the country. And 
globally, we are seeing data that indicates that AIDS-related deaths 
are actually increasing among adolescents. At home and abroad, such 
trends are troubling.
  We therefore cannot rest on our laurels. The United States must 
continue to lead this global fight. Through strong funding for PEPFAR 
and multilateral organizations like the Global Fund, we will ensure the 
continued commitment and leadership of partner countries reinforced 
with support from donor nations, civil society, and people living with 
HIV, faith-based organizations, the private sector, and foundations. 
And at here at home, we must ensure that the Centers for Disease 
Control and Prevention, CDC, the National Institutes of Health, NIH, 
the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and our State, local, and community 
partners have the resources they need to continue making significant 
progress to prevent, treat, and eventually cure this disease.
  With our work cut out for us and the memories of far too many loved 
ones in our hearts, we strive on this World AIDS Day as an 
international community toward a world free of HIV/AIDS and recommit to 
mobilize the resources needed for treatment, to summon the compassion 
and understanding to prevent stigma, and to unleash our collective 
ingenuity and persistence in search of a cure.

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