July 7, 2021
The latest episode of Px Pulse takes a deep dive into PEPFAR, The President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, looking at its pioneering successes and its challenges. In this episode, AVAC’s former Director of Strategy and Content, Emily Bass, discusses her new book, To End a Plague: America’s fight to end AIDS in Africa.
Emily began reporting this comprehensive history of PEPFAR not long after George W. Bush launched the program in 2003. Since its creation, PEPFAR had an enormous impact and radically changed expectations of what a foreign aid program should be.
But the program has also faced challenges. Emily covers it all in her new book, including questions related to health equity, drug costs, patents, and the best ways to design and implement a foreign aid program and address pandemics.
This podcast episode is bittersweet for us at AVAC. After nearly 16 years with AVAC, Emily is taking on new challenges in the larger field of global health as part of the new Pandemic Prevention Institute. Her leadership at AVAC has provided a legacy of passionate, far-sighted advocacy and she will be deeply missed. Congratulations, Emily, on this book, and we look forward to our continued collaborations with you in fighting against pandemics and for global health equity.
Happy Listening!