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HIV Prevention Strategic
Plan Through 2005
Preface
Since the beginning of the AIDS
epidemic more than 20 years ago, the
Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) has been at the
forefront of prevention, working
with a wide array of public- and
private-sector partners across the
United States and around the
globe.
Over the last two decades,
HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment
science has advanced dramatically.
Mother-to-child HIV transmission has
been drastically reduced in the
United States in recent years-from
a high of 2,500 in 1992 to less than
400 perinatal HIV infections
annually. Behavioral science has
expanded the repertoire of targeted,
effective prevention programs for
populations at high risk for HIV
infection, such as men who have sex
with men, injection drug users, and
women who engage in risky behaviors.
Community capacity to design,
deliver, and evaluate interventions
has also grown steadily. In the last
five years, with the advent of new
drug combinations to treat HIV
infection and delay the onset of
AIDS, there is renewed hope and
cautious optimism about further
reducing transmission as infected
people's viral loads are
diminished and their potential
infectiousness is possibly reduced.
But, even with these successes,
CDC estimates that approximately
40,000 people per year in the United
States continue to become infected
with HIV, a number that has remained
relatively stable-but unacceptably
high-for much of the past decade.
And although the number of new
infections has been static, the
epidemic itself has not. In addition
to the groups that have been at
highest risk since the beginning of
the epidemic--men who have sex with
men and injection drug users--new
populations are increasingly at risk
for HIV infection, particularly
racial and ethnic minorities, women,
and adolescents.
A new strategic plan for HIV
prevention and control is timely and
essential in guiding our efforts to
more effectively address HIV
infection and AIDS at home and
abroad. CDC's HIV Prevention
Strategic Plan Through 2005 lays out
the blueprint for those actions. CDC
looks forward to working in a
collegial way with our many partners
to protect people's health by
enhancing the effect of mutually
conducted HIV/AIDS efforts
throughout the Nation and the world.
Jeffrey P.
Koplan, M.D., M.P.H.
Director
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