December 1 is World AIDS Day. The 2023 theme is World AIDS Day 35: Remember and Commit.
The 35 is a reference to the years since the first World AIDS Day in 1988. Two years later, in 1990, the Ryan White CARE Act was enacted, structured in part upon earlier community-driven AIDS service work to create a framework for a national network of local, state, and national care programs to address varied HIV care needs.
Subsequent work across the decades, by HRSA's HIV/AIDS Bureau and over 600 Ryan White agencies, built today's Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP). Achievements are most notably summarized in viral suppression rates for RWHAP clients. In 2021, 89.7% of RWHAP clients receiving RWHAP medical care were virally suppressed, according to the RWHAP Annual Client-Level Data Report, 2021 (HRSA, 2022).
What follows is a summary of select benchmarks of the work of the RWHAP over the past 35-plus years. Highlights are drawn from earlier blogs and reports, featured in the sidebar.