In Africa, success against AIDS
Harvard AIDS researchers gathered at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) last Thursday to mark 10 years of work under a key federal anti-AIDS program that has been instrumental in stemming the tide of a disease that once threatened to destroy entire societies. PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, began in 2003 and provided support at a critical stage of the global epidemic. At the time, a new generation of drugs was working miracles in industrialized countries but remained unavailable in poor countries, where AIDS raged unchecked. Tendani Gaolathe (left), director of the HSPH Master Trainer Corps Program in Botswana, and Richard Marlink, scientific director of the HSPH Aids Initiative, were among those who examined a decade of AIDS relief work. Photo by Kris Snibbe/Harvard Staff Photographer Nations of sub-Saharan Africa were at the pandemic’s epicenter, with an AIDS diagnosis meaning almost certain death, and prevalence rates topping 30 percent...