November 8, 2020
This week, the American people elected Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as the next President and Vice President of the United States. This is a historic moment for many reasons, including the election of the first woman, first Black and first Indian-American person as Vice President.
AVAC marks this long-awaited, historic day as a victory for all who are committed to science, evidence, compassion, empathy, dialogue and diversity.
While we celebrate, we also acknowledge the enormous public health and global development challenges that the Biden-Harris Administration must address. AVAC looks forward to working with the incoming Administration, and with allies around the world, to secure health equity and justice for all.
As we move forward, AVAC calls for:
- Full, continued funding of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, with support and extension for PEPFAR’s robust data-driven approach and the broad, health systems and rights-focused work of both PEPFAR and the Global Fund.
- The immediate rescission of the Global Gag Rule, as a first step towards a human-centered, life-saving, rights-based approach to health within and beyond America’s borders.
- Recommitting full scientific and financial support to the World Health Organization.
- Restoring US and global confidence in the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
- Ensuring that the United States leads a science-based response to COVID-19, focused on reducing rates of infection and death among those most affected by the pandemic, whose vulnerability is often tied to the effects of systemic racism and inequitable health systems.
- Supporting global health efforts to ensure that COVID-19 specific funding builds robust multi-disease prevention, testing and treatment programs that address HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and that advances responses to gender-based violence by financing and supporting community leaders leading the fight for change.
There is much to be done, but also much to celebrate. AVAC looks forward to participating in a rejuvenated and reenergized movement towards justice and health in the months and years ahead.