§ 7611.
(a)
Strategy
The President shall establish a comprehensive, integrated, 5-year strategy to expand and improve efforts to combat global HIV/AIDS. This strategy shall—
(1)
further strengthen the capability of the United States to be an effective leader of the international campaign against this disease and strengthen the capacities of nations experiencing HIV/AIDS epidemics to combat this disease;
(2)
maintain sufficient flexibility and remain responsive to—
(A)
changes in the epidemic;
(B)
challenges facing partner countries in developing and implementing an effective national response; and
(C)
evidence-based improvements and innovations in the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV/AIDS;
(3)
situate United States efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria within the broader United States global health and development agenda, establishing a roadmap to link investments in specific disease programs to the broader goals of strengthening health systems and infrastructure and to integrate and coordinate HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, or malaria programs with other health or development programs, as appropriate;
(4)
provide a plan to—
(A)
prevent 12,000,000 new HIV infections worldwide;
(B)
support—
(ii)
additional treatment through coordinated multilateral efforts;
(C)
support care for 12,000,000 individuals infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS, including 5,000,000 orphans and vulnerable children affected by HIV/AIDS, with an emphasis on promoting a comprehensive, coordinated system of services to be integrated throughout the continuum of care;
(D)
help partner countries in the effort to achieve goals of 80 percent access to counseling, testing, and treatment to prevent the transmission of HIV from mother to child, emphasizing a continuum of care model;
(E)
help partner countries to provide care and treatment services to children with HIV in proportion to their percentage within the HIV-infected population in each country;
(F)
promote preservice training for health professionals designed to strengthen the capacity of institutions to develop and implement policies for training health workers to combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria;
(G)
equip teachers with skills needed for HIV/AIDS prevention and support for persons with, or affected by, HIV/AIDS;
(H)
provide and share best practices for combating HIV/AIDS with health professionals;
(I)
promote pediatric HIV/AIDS training for physicians, nurses, and other health care workers, through public-private partnerships if possible, including through the designation, if appropriate, of centers of excellence for training in pediatric HIV/AIDS prevention, care, and treatment in partner countries; and
(J)
help partner countries to train and support retention of health care professionals and paraprofessionals, with the target of training and retaining at least 140,000 new health care professionals and paraprofessionals with an emphasis on training and in country deployment of critically needed doctors and nurses and to strengthen capacities in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, to deliver primary health care with the objective of helping countries achieve staffing levels of at least 2.3 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 1,000 population, as called for by the World Health Organization;
(5)
include multisectoral approaches and specific strategies to treat individuals infected with HIV/AIDS and to prevent the further transmission of HIV infections, with a particular focus on the needs of families with children (including the prevention of mother-to-child transmission), women, young people, orphans, and vulnerable children;
(6)
establish a timetable with annual global treatment targets with country-level benchmarks for antiretroviral treatment;
(7)
expand the integration of timely and relevant research within the prevention, care, and treatment of HIV/AIDS;
(8)
include a plan for program monitoring, operations research, and impact evaluation and for the dissemination of a best practices report to highlight findings;
(9)
support the in-country or intra-regional training, preferably through public-private partnerships, of scientific investigators, managers, and other staff who are capable of promoting the systematic uptake of clinical research findings and other evidence-based interventions into routine practice, with the goal of improving the quality, effectiveness, and local leadership of HIV/AIDS health care;
(10)
expand and accelerate research on and development of HIV/AIDS prevention methods for women, including enhancing inter-agency collaboration, staffing, and organizational infrastructure dedicated to microbicide research;
(11)
provide for consultation with local leaders and officials to develop prevention strategies and programs that are tailored to the unique needs of each country and community and targeted particularly toward those most at risk of acquiring HIV infection;
(12)
make the reduction of HIV/AIDS behavioral risks a priority of all prevention efforts by—
(A)
promoting abstinence from sexual activity and encouraging monogamy and faithfulness;
(B)
encouraging the correct and consistent use of male and female condoms and increasing the availability of, and access to, these commodities;
(C)
promoting the delay of sexual debut and the reduction of multiple concurrent sexual partners;
(D)
promoting education for discordant couples (where an individual is infected with HIV and the other individual is uninfected or whose status is unknown) about safer sex practices;
(E)
promoting voluntary counseling and testing, addiction therapy, and other prevention and treatment tools for illicit injection drug users and other substance abusers;
(F)
educating men and boys about the risks of procuring sex commercially and about the need to end violent behavior toward women and girls;
(G)
supporting partner country and community efforts to identify and address social, economic, or cultural factors, such as migration, urbanization, conflict, gender-based violence, lack of empowerment for women, and transportation patterns, which directly contribute to the transmission of HIV;
(H)
supporting comprehensive programs to promote alternative livelihoods, safety, and social reintegration strategies for commercial sex workers and their families;
(I)
promoting cooperation with law enforcement to prosecute offenders of trafficking, rape, and sexual assault crimes with the goal of eliminating such crimes; and
(J)
working to eliminate rape, gender-based violence, sexual assault, and the sexual exploitation of women and children;
(13)
include programs to reduce the transmission of HIV, particularly addressing the heightened vulnerabilities of women and girls to HIV in many countries; and
(14)
support other important means of preventing or reducing the transmission of HIV, including—
(A)
medical male circumcision;
(B)
the maintenance of a safe blood supply;
(C)
promoting universal precautions in formal and informal health care settings;
(D)
educating the public to recognize and to avoid risks to contract HIV through blood exposures during formal and informal health care and cosmetic services;
(E)
investigating suspected nosocomial infections to identify and stop further nosocomial transmission; and
(F)
other mechanisms to reduce the transmission of HIV;
(15)
increase support for prevention of mother-to-child transmission;
(16)
build capacity within the public health sector of developing countries by improving health systems and public health infrastructure and developing indicators to measure changes in broader public health sector capabilities;
(17)
increase the coordination of HIV/AIDS programs with development programs;
(18)
provide a framework for expanding or developing existing or new country or regional programs, including—
(A)
drafting compacts or other agreements, as appropriate;
(B)
establishing criteria and objectives for such compacts and agreements; and
(C)
promoting sustainability;
(19)
provide a plan for national and regional priorities for resource distribution and a global investment plan by region;
(20)
provide a plan to address the immediate and ongoing needs of women and girls, which—
(A)
addresses the vulnerabilities that contribute to their elevated risk of infection;
(B)
includes specific goals and targets to address these factors;
(C)
provides clear guidance to field missions to integrate gender across prevention, care, and treatment programs;
(D)
sets forth gender-specific indicators to monitor progress on outcomes and impacts of gender programs;
(E)
supports efforts in countries in which women or orphans lack inheritance rights and other fundamental protections to promote the passage, implementation, and enforcement of such laws;
(F)
supports life skills training, especially among women and girls, with the goal of reducing vulnerabilities to HIV/AIDS;
(G)
addresses and prevents gender-based violence; and
(H)
addresses the posttraumatic and psychosocial consequences and provides postexposure prophylaxis protecting against HIV infection to victims of gender-based violence and rape;
(21)
provide a plan to—
(A)
determine the local factors that may put men and boys at elevated risk of contracting or transmitting HIV;
(B)
address male norms and behaviors to reduce these risks, including by reducing alcohol abuse;
(C)
promote responsible male behavior; and
(D)
promote male participation and leadership at the community level in efforts to promote HIV prevention, reduce stigma, promote participation in voluntary counseling and testing, and provide care, treatment, and support for persons with HIV/AIDS;
(22)
provide a plan to address the vulnerabilities and needs of orphans and children who are vulnerable to, or affected by, HIV/AIDS;
(23)
encourage partner countries to develop health care curricula and promote access to training tailored to individuals receiving services through, or exiting from, existing programs geared to orphans and vulnerable children;
(24)
provide a framework to work with international actors and partner countries toward universal access to HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and care programs, recognizing that prevention is of particular importance;
(25)
enhance the coordination of United States bilateral efforts to combat global HIV/AIDS with other major public and private entities;
(26)
enhance the attention given to the national strategic HIV/AIDS plans of countries receiving United States assistance by—
(A)
reviewing the planning and programmatic decisions associated with that assistance; and
(B)
helping to strengthen such national strategies, if necessary;
(27)
support activities described in the Global Plan to Stop TB, including—
(A)
expanding and enhancing the coverage of the Directly Observed Treatment Short-course (DOTS) in order to treat individuals infected with tuberculosis and HIV, including multi-drug resistant or extensively drug resistant tuberculosis; and
(B)
improving coordination and integration of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis programming;
(28)
ensure coordination between the Global AIDS Coordinator and the Malaria Coordinator and address issues of comorbidity between HIV/AIDS and malaria; and
(29)
include a longer term estimate of the projected resource needs, progress toward greater sustainability and country ownership of HIV/AIDS programs, and the anticipated role of the United States in the global effort to combat HIV/AIDS during the 10-year period beginning on October 1, 2013.
([Pub. L. 108–25, title I, § 101], May 27, 2003, [117 Stat. 718]; [Pub. L. 110–293, title I, § 101], July 30, 2008, [122 Stat. 2923]; [Pub. L. 113–56], §§ 2, 3(a), Dec. 2, 2013, [127 Stat. 648]; [Pub. L. 115–305, § 2], Dec. 11, 2018, [132 Stat. 4402]; [Pub. L. 118–47, div. F, title VII, § 7072(a)], Mar. 23, 2024, [138 Stat. 852].)