HANOVER, New Hampshire — 2020 Democratic front-runner Joe Biden pledged to end the HIV epidemic within five years after being elected, a timeline that would cut in half a similar goal set by the Trump administration.
The former vice president, speaking to an audience of nearly 400 people during a town hall at Dartmouth College, replied “yes” to a healthcare worker who asked him whether he would pledge to end the HIV epidemic by 2025. The audience member said that reaching the goal would require universal healthcare policies, expanding housing, and reforming drug pricing.
Biden didn’t say how he would go about addressing HIV specifically but went on to talk about his work in the fight against cancer in the Obama administration. He made some links between the importance of prioritizing medical research, saying such a commitment could also be extended to HIV.
Trump committed in his State of the Union address this year to ending the spread of HIV within 10 years, an ambitious goal but one that public health advocates have long believed is realistic. Roughly 1 million people in the U.S. are HIV-positive, and 40,000 more people are infected every year.
The Trump administration’s plan is to reduce HIV transmission by 75% in five years and by 90% in 10 years, primarily by increasing access to medication. Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, or PrEP, prevents the spread of HIV and is often known by its brand name Truvada.
Thanks to advances in medical research HIV is no longer the death sentence it once was. If people do become HIV positive, they can take drugs known as antiretrovirals to suppress HIV for their lifetimes and stop the progression to AIDS, a disease that weakens the immune system. Antiretrovirals cost about $450,000 per person over the course of a lifetime.
