U.S. Ambassador Deborah L. Birx, M.D.
U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Deborah L. Birx, M.D., will give an update on Friday, March 13, at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine on the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a government-funded program that over the past 12 years has had a dramatic impact on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Birx’s lecture, entitled “PEPFAR 3.0: Right Thing; Right Place; Right Time,” will begin at 11 a.m. in 202 Light Hall. Her lecture and her visit to Nashville is sponsored in part by the Vanderbilt Institute for Global Health (VIGH).
PEPFAR was signed into law in 2003 by President George W. Bush. Between 2008 and 2013, the number of people placed on antiretroviral therapy to control HIV infection quadrupled, from 1.7 million to more than 6.7 million. Its achievements include marked reductions in HIV infections and AIDS-associated mortality, and improvements in life expectancy among people in PEPFAR-focus countries, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa.
Birx is coordinator of U.S. Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS, including PEPFAR, and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy. She will visit several Nashville providers of HIV/AIDS services during her visit.