U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) led a bipartisan contingent of his colleagues in calling on the Biden administration to revive the Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) program in a reauthorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
“We enthusiastically endorse PEPFAR’s reauthorization, which benefits from strong bipartisan support. We also support the administration’s commitment to ending HIV/AIDS as a public health threat by 2030,” wrote Sen. Cassidy and 19 of his colleagues in a June 2 letter sent to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Health Diplomacy Ambassador Dr. John N. Nkengasong.
“Accordingly, we want to draw attention to one of the most significant remaining challenges to pandemic control: the continued high rate of HIV among pregnant women, and the attendant high rates of vertical transmission of the virus from mother to child,” the senators wrote.
In 2021, approximately 130,000 newborns were infected with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa, wrote the lawmakers, noting that despite 20 years of a successful PEPFAR, such numbers remain “stubbornly high.”
“Unless change is made, these women will continue to suffer with, die from, and transmit to their babies AIDS,” they wrote. “The lack of quality maternal care in Africa can be fixed – and these mothers and their babies can be saved.”
Such change, they wrote, could come through the Saving Mothers, Giving Life (SMGL) program, a successful five-year pilot program implemented during the Obama administration with PEPFAR funding and infrastructure that offered a package of clinical interventions to address three delays that prevent pregnant women from receiving quality services: delay in the decision to seek care; delay in reaching care; and delay in receiving quality care.
The SMGL cut maternal mortality by 40 percent, according to their letter, and increased treatment to prevent vertical HIV transmission by 71 percent.
“The success that PEPFAR should have with implementing such a maternal care program will extend beyond the lives saved and pain ameliorated among African women and children,” wrote Sen. Cassidy and his colleagues.
They also noted that the SMGL would be strategically important to the United States as 40 percent of the world’s population will be African by the end of the century.
“Our strategic competitors are investing comprehensively in the region,” the senators wrote. “We know that the PEPFAR program remains one of our most potent soft power assets on this front.”
Among the 19 lawmakers who joined Sen. Cassidy in signing the letter were U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Thom Tillis (R-NC), Mitt Romney (R-UT), Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Tim Kaine (D-VA).
Their letter is supported by African Mission Healthcare.