Thanks to the leadership of the World Health Organisation (WHO) [1], and massive financial support from programmes such as the Global Fund and the US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the number of HIV-infected individuals accessing antiretroviral therapy (ART) in resource-limited settings has tripled from 2001 to 2005. An estimated 1.3 million HIV-infected individuals were o...

BACKGROUND Vertically oriented global health initiatives (GHIs) addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), have successfully contributed to reducing HIV/AIDS related morbidity and mortality. However, there is still debate about whether these disease-specific programs have improved or harmed health systems overall, especially with respect...

Infectious disease control has become an increasingly central component of development policy and practice. In 2000, the UN led Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) targets focused specifically on HIV and other infectious diseases as one dimension of increasing global equity and health. Infectious diseases have progressively become an issue articulated around global “security”, coupled with a he...

Recent debate has addressed whether global health financing should prioritize interventions that maximize lives saved; focus on the young; and are most economically efficient (most cost-effective). In particular, some have argued that an expansion of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPfAR) is not the best use of international health funding, and that extending funding to treat d...

BACKGROUND The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was reauthorized in June 2008 with a three-fold increase in funds, and a broader, more explicit mandate to improve health in the low- and middle-income countries that it funded. However, the ability of a disease-specific, or vertical, programme to have a spill-over effect and improve health outcomes has been questioned. In th...

Infections with hepatitis B virus (HBV) and hepatitis C virus (HCV) are major causes of morbidity and mortality globally, primarily because of sequelae of chronic liver disease including cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (1). The risks for HBV and HCV transmission via blood transfusions have been described previously (2) and are believed to be higher in countries in sub-Saharan Africa (3)....

Engaging key populations, including gender and sexual minorities, is essential to meeting global targets for reducing new HIV infections and improving the HIV continuum of care. Negative attitudes toward gender and sexual minorities serve as a barrier to political will and effective programming for HIV health services. The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), established in 2003...

the united states president’s emergency plan for aids relief (pepfar) emphasizes health systems strengthening as a cornerstone of programmatic success. health systems strengthening, among other things, includes effective capacity building for clinical care, administrative management and public health practice. avante zambéziais a district-level in-service training program for administrative sta...

In 2007, there were 33.2 million people around the world living with HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS/WHO, 2007). In May 2003, the U.S. President announced a global program, known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), to address this epidemic. We seek to estimate patient mortality in PEPFAR in an effort to monitor and evaluate this program. This effort, however, is hampered by loss to fol...

In most countries, the burden of HIV among people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men, and sex workers is disproportionately high compared with that in the general population. Meanwhile, coverage rates of effective interventions among those key populations (KPs) are extremely low, despite a strong evidence base about the effectiveness of currently available interventions. In its first d...