AVAC in the News

In 2018, Mike Ferraro was living on the street and sharing needles with other people who injected drugs when he found out he was HIV-positive. “I thought it was a death sentence, where you have sores and you deteriorate,” he said. Ferraro learned of his HIV status through a University of Miami Miller School of Medicine initiative called IDEA Exchange, which sent doctors and medical students to the corner where he panhandled. He got tested and enrolled in the program, which also provides clean syringes, overdose reversal medications, and HIV prevention and treatment drugs.

Payer trade groups have written Democrats chairing five key U.S. House and Senate committees stating their Affordable Care Act plans will most likely continue to offer many preventive health services at no cost to members while the U.S. Supreme Court weighs the challenge known as Braidwood vs. Becerra. Advocates aren’t sure they mean it or for how long. The plaintiffs in Braidwood, a federal case in Texas, are contesting the right of the government to require payers to cover the full cost of care meant to prevent certain illnesses or conditions.

The words “gridlock in Congress” are used so often that it’s hard to believe there are still issues that are truly bipartisan. However, after many decades, there is one issue that continues to receive support from both sides of the aisle. The effort to end HIV and AIDS has been not only a uniting cause in Congress, but it has also, through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), resulted in one of the best examples of US global health leadership in history.

Allan Maleche, the head of the Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV/AIDS (KELIN), remembers what his country was like before the introduction of lifesaving HIV medications in the early 2000s. “This sounds like a sob story, but people were on their deathbeds, writing their last will and testament,” he says. “The moment ARVs [antiretroviral medications] came on board, we saw a lot of people bounce back and become vibrant, helping others to not become HIV positive and being active citizens of the world.”