Gilead tracks five years of HIV grant giving in hard-hit US South, and doubles down on new approaches

Gilead Sci­ences is now halfway through its 10-year pledge in the US south­ern states to tack­le HIV through com­mu­ni­ty grants, and look­ing back while al­so dou­bling down on new ap­proach­es to the still-grow­ing prob­lem.

Its Com­mit­ment to Part­ner­ship in Ad­dress­ing HIV in South­ern States (COM­PASS) is now aim­ing for an “eq­ui­ty-dri­ven ap­proach” in its grant-giv­ing and sup­port to or­ga­ni­za­tions.

South­ern states to­day ac­count for half of the deaths and 51% of the new cas­es of HIV in the US — even though on­ly one-third of the pop­u­la­tion lives there, Gilead says. How­ev­er, more con­cern­ing is the 30% de­crease since 2020 in peo­ple re­ceiv­ing treat­ment for HIV, “many of whom were Black Amer­i­cans who al­so shoul­dered a dis­pro­por­tion­ate share of con­se­quences of the Covid-19 pan­dem­ic,” said Dar­win Thomp­son, Gilead di­rec­tor of pub­lic af­fairs in a round­table dis­cus­sion on Wednes­day.

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