The Road Ahead (2011 and Beyond)

With no AIDS vaccine and no cure, the road ahead is familiar. We must continue our assault on barriers to care. We must become even more prodigious at using scarce resources wisely. And we must adapt our responses to meet challenges that were once on the horizon but are now immediately before us.

Many people living with HIV/AIDS are encountering health issues associated with middle and old age. HIV incidence among the young remains nothing less than horrifying. Worldwide, the circumstances are even more dire, and we are challenged to do our part to meet those needs as well. And on every front, the cost of health care spirals out of control.

For people who are part of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program community, these issues have been apparent for some time. The community has responded—and continues to respond—by revisiting and modifying policies, adapting to changes in the legislation, and finding new ways to combat an entrenched epidemic.

Continual changes in approach reflect the zeal of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program community to travel a road that will not be smooth. But for hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS in the United States, it is a road that must be traveled. Because of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, it can be.