Obama: AIDS-free generation ‘within reach’

President Obama is calling on the U.S. to renew its commitment to fight AIDS, saying that an end to the deadly disease is “finally within reach.”

“We’re closer than we’ve ever been to achieving the extraordinary: an AIDS-free generation,” Obama said in a video released Monday to mark World AIDS Day. “But we’ve got to keep fighting, all of us.”

{mosads}He pointed to broader access to treatment, testing and prevention for people across the world, touting the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a multibillion-dollar Bush administration program.

The program, which had its budget tripled by Obama, now provides treatment to 7.7 million people globally and spends nearly $50 billion annually.

Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at a White House event on Monday, also lauded the impact from the program since it launched in 1998.

“Of all the things that the United States can take pride in, this has to be one of the single biggest and most important,” he said.

Kerry cited the expansion of PEPFAR under the Obama administration.

“It’s fair to say that we have achieved much of this because President Obama, when he came into office, was determined to set a higher standard,” he said.

Kerry on Monday unveiled a new partnership between PEPFAR and a nonprofit, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, which will help create data hubs to set goals and improve transparency.

He also announced a major investment in training doctors and nurses to help treat and prevent AIDS, coupled with a commitment to double the number of children receiving life-saving treatments over the next two years in some of the worst-affected areas of Africa.

The White House event also featured two other big names in HIV prevention and treatment: national security adviser Susan Rice, a former ambassador to the United Nations; and Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Kerry, a former senator, recalled leading one of the country’s first task forces on HIV/AIDS in 1991, at a time when it was “even difficult politically for some people to talk about [AIDS] publicly.”

“As recently as 10 years ago, it seemed like this would be a death sentence for an entire continent. That’s how we looked at it,” he said. “Well, the tide is turned.”