III 

117TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION S. RES. 856 

Commemorating and supporting the goals of World AIDS Day. 

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES 

DECEMBER 1, 2022 

Mr. BOOKER (for himself and Mr. SULLIVAN) submitted the following 

resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations 

RESOLUTION 

Commemorating and supporting the goals of World AIDS 

Day. 

Whereas, as of the end of 2021, an estimated 38,400,000 

people were living with human immunodeficiency virus 

(HIV) or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), 

including 1,700,000 children; 

Whereas, in the United States, more than 770,000 people 

with AIDS have died since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, including over 18,000 deaths among people with 

diagnosed HIV in 2020, with the disease disproportionately affecting communities of color; 

Whereas, in 2020, over 30,000 people became newly diagnosed with HIV in the United States; 

Whereas communities of color are disproportionately affected 

by HIV in the United States; 


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•SRES 856 IS 

Whereas, in order to address the HIV epidemic in the United 

States, on August 18, 1990, Congress enacted the Ryan 

White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act 

(Public Law 101–381; commonly referred to as the 

‘‘Ryan White CARE Act’’) to provide primary medical 

care and essential support services for people living with 

HIV who are uninsured or underinsured; 

Whereas the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program provides services and support for over half of all people diagnosed with 

HIV in the United States; 

Whereas, to further focus attention on the HIV/AIDS epidemic among minority communities in the United States, 

in 1998 the Minority AIDS Initiative was established to 

provide funds to State and local institutions and organizations to best serve the health care costs and support 

the needs of racial and ethnic minorities living with HIV; 

Whereas the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 

established a global target to end AIDS as a public 

health threat by 2030; 

Whereas, in order to further address the global HIV/AIDS 

epidemic, in 2003, Congress and the White House created the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief 

(referred to in this preamble as ‘‘PEPFAR’’); 

Whereas the United States PEPFAR program remains the 

largest commitment in history by any country to combat 

a single disease; 

Whereas, as of September 30, 2022, PEPFAR has supported 

treatment for more than 20,000,000 people, and has enabled 5,500,000 infants of mothers living with HIV to be 

born HIV-free; 


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Whereas, in fiscal year 2021, PEPFAR directly supported 

HIV testing and counseling for 64,700,000 people; 

Whereas the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and 

Malaria was launched in 2002, and, as of 2021, has 

helped provide antiretroviral therapy to approximately 

23,300,000 people living with HIV/AIDS and to 670,000 

pregnant women to prevent the transmission of HIV/ 

AIDS to their children, saving an estimated 50,000,000 

lives; 

Whereas the United States is the largest donor to the Global 

Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and 

every $1 contributed by the United States leverages an 

additional $2 from other donors, as required by law; 

Whereas, with United States leadership, global partners 

pledged record amounts to combat infectious diseases at 

the seventh replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight 

AIDS in September 2022; 

Whereas considerable progress has been made in the fight 

against HIV/AIDS, including a nearly 30-percent reduction in new HIV infections, an over 50-percent reduction 

in new HIV infections among children, and an over 45- 

percent reduction in the number of AIDS-related deaths 

between 2010 and 2020; 

Whereas approximately 28,700,000 people had access to 

antiretroviral therapy in 2021, compared to only 

7,800,000 people who had access to such therapy in 

2010; 

Whereas research funded by the National Institutes of Health 

found that HIV treatment not only saves the lives of people living with HIV, but people living with HIV on effective antiretroviral therapy and who are durably virally 


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suppressed cannot sexually transmit HIV—proving that 

HIV treatment is prevention; 

Whereas it is estimated that, without treatment, half of all 

infants living with HIV will die before their second birthday; 

Whereas, despite the remarkable progress in combating HIV, 

significant challenges remain; 

Whereas there were approximately 1,500,000 new HIV infections in 2021 globally, structural barriers continue to 

make testing and treatment programs inaccessible to 

highly vulnerable populations, and an estimated 

5,900,000 people living with HIV globally still do not 

know their HIV status; 

Whereas the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that nearly 31,000 people were diagnosed with HIV 

in the United States in 2020 and 13 percent of the 

1,200,000 people in the United States living with HIV 

are not aware of their HIV status; 

Whereas men who have sex with men (referred to in this preamble as ‘‘MSM’’), particularly young MSM of color, are 

the population most affected by HIV in the United 

States; 

Whereas southern States bear the greatest burden of HIV in 

the United States, accounting for 51 percent of new infections in 2018; 

Whereas people living with HIV are frequently susceptible to 

other infections, such as hepatitis B and C and tuberculosis; 

Whereas the opioid and heroin epidemics have led to increased numbers of new HIV infections among people 

who inject drugs, and the crisis has disproportionately afVerDate Sep 11 2014 03:58 Dec 02, 2022 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\SR856.IS SR856

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fected nonurban areas, where HIV prevalence rates have 

been low historically and have limited services for HIV 

prevention and treatment and substance use disorder 

treatment; 

Whereas the COVID–19 pandemic has placed a significant 

burden on the public health systems across the United 

States and the globe; 

Whereas 2023 marks the 20th anniversary of the PEPFAR 

program, an initiative launched by President George W. 

Bush with bi-partisan support that has become the primary policy instrument of the United States to address 

HIV/AIDS in the developing world; 

Whereas December 1 of each year is internationally recognized as ‘‘World AIDS Day’’; and 

Whereas, in 2022, commemorations for World AIDS Day recognize that the inequalities which perpetuate the AIDS 

pandemic are not inevitable and that the world can tackle 

them: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the Senate— 

2 (1) supports the goals and ideals of World 

3 AIDS Day, including the goal to achieve zero new 

4 HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS5 related deaths; 

6 (2) commends the efforts and achievements in 

7 combating HIV/AIDS through the Ryan White HIV/ 

8 AIDS Treatment Extension Act, the Minority HIV/ 

9 AIDS Initiative, the Centers for Disease Control and 

10 Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the 


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1 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Ad2 ministration, the Office of Minority Health, and the 

3 Office of the Secretary of Health and Human Serv4 ices; 

5 (3) commends the efforts and achievements in 

6 combating HIV/AIDS made by the President’s 

7 Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the Global Fund 

8 to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and the 

9 Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS; 

10 (4) supports efforts to end the HIV epidemic in 

11 the United States and around the world by 2030; 

12 (5) supports continued funding for prevention, 

13 care, and treatment services, and research programs 

14 for communities impacted by HIV and people living 

15 with HIV in the United States and globally; 

16 (6) urges, in order to ensure that an AIDS-free 

17 generation is achievable, rapid action by all countries 

18 toward further expansion and scale-up of 

19 antiretroviral treatment programs, including efforts 

20 to reduce disparities and improve access for children 

21 to life saving medications; 

22 (7) encourages the scaling up of comprehensive 

23 prevention services, including biomedical and struc24 tural interventions, to ensure inclusive access to pro25 grams and appropriate protections for all people at 


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1 risk of contracting HIV, especially in communities 

2 disproportionately impacted; 

3 (8) calls for greater focus on the HIV-related 

4 vulnerabilities of women and girls, including women 

5 and girls at risk for or who have survived violence 

6 or faced discrimination as a result of the disease; 

7 (9) supports continued leadership by the United 

8 States in domestic, bilateral, multilateral, and pri9 vate sector efforts to fight HIV; 

10 (10) encourages input from civil society in the 

11 development and implementation of domestic and 

12 global HIV policies and programs that guide the re13 sponse; 

14 (11) encourages and supports greater degrees 

15 of ownership and shared responsibility by developing 

16 countries in order to ensure the sustainability of the 

17 domestic responses to HIV/AIDS by those countries; 

18 and 

19 (12) urges other members of the international 

20 community to sustain and scale up their support for 

21 and financial contributions to efforts around the 

22 world to combat HIV. 

Æ 


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