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Peter Piot, founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), recounts his experience as a clinician, scientist, and activist fighting the disease from its earliest manifestation to today. The AIDS pandemic was not only disruptive to the health of millions worldwide but also fractured international relations, global access to new technologies, and public health policies in nations across the globe. As he struggled to get ahead of the disease, Piot found science does little good when it operates independently of politics and economics, and politics is worth

Peter Piot, founding executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), reports on the influence of civil society in international relations and traditional partisan divides. AIDS thrust health into national and international politics where, he argues, it rightly belongs. The global reaction to AIDS over the past decade is the positive result of this partnership, showing what can be acheved when science, politics, and policy converge on the ground. Piot describes funding mechanisms for AIDS, the first international declarations, the response of the UN system, the es

In the late 1970s, early investigations into the Ebola virus informed the world's understanding of what was then an unknown disease. One such study, published by Bowen and colleagues in 1978, laid the foundations for future research into its prevention and treatment. However, nearly four decades later, scientific progress had not translated into action on the ground with no approved drugs, no vaccines, and no diagnostic tests available when the 2014-15 outbreak began in West Africa. Encouragingly, it appears that we have learned important lessons from the 2014-2015 outbreak, with a swift and rigorous response to the most recent outbreaks in Équateur Province, Democratic Republic of Congo, including the deployment of a vaccine. Ebola will certainly remain a challenge in the years to come and we as the global health community must ensure that innovative research translates into policy and action on the ground, with the full participation of affected communities.

More than 35 years since the HIV/AIDS pandemic began, HIV continues to cause almost two million new infections each year, and the "end of AIDS" by 2030 remains elusive.1 Violations of human rights continue to fuel high rates of new infections among key populations and a generalized epidemic in much of sub-Saharan Africa. Meanwhile, as political shifts worldwide threaten not only HIV funding but also progress toward the globalization of human rights, civil society mobilization and advocacy founded firmly on human rights principles have a more vital role to play than ever. Encouragingly, there are numerous examples of successful integration of human rights-based approaches into HIV prevention and treatment initiatives, and evidence increasingly demonstrates that norms enshrining the respect, protection, and fulfillment of human rights can translate into improved public health.2 This essay will succinctly trace the historic emergence of human rights as an issue at the heart of the HIV/AIDS response; it will then provide examples of progress and setbacks in recent years and consider the potential for rights promotion to address the structural drivers of HIV. Finally, it will consider how the primacy of human rights in HIV/AIDS has affected other fields of global health and will highlight the continuing imperative to work with civil society to protect and promote human rights to reduce the burden of HIV/AIDS.

Shortly after the first reports on the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) in the United States, it became clear that the disease was also particularly frequent in Haitians living in North America (Pitcheniket at., 1983; Curranet al., 1985) and in Africans seen in Europe for medical care (Katlamaet al., 1984; Clumecket al., 1984). Subsequently, surveys in Haiti and in Central Africa confirmed the occurrence of epidemic foci of AIDS in these areas (Papeet al., 1983; Malebrancheet al., 1983; Piotet al., 1984; Van de Perreet al., 1984).

The opening ten years of the 21st century arguably were the decade of global health. Resources increased significantly and many millions of lives were saved and improved. The rapid expansion in global health was part of a broader conceptual movement that created core principles for the use of resources in a new era in development. The first expression of new thinking was the historic Monterrey Consensus, which was later refined by the Paris Declaration and the Accra Accord. The foundational principle outlined in those agreements is a move from paternalism to shared responsibility and mutual accountability. Key to shared responsibility are leadership and strategic direction for the use of resources by the country in which they are deployed ("country ownership"). Achieving country ownership requires good governance, a results-based approach, and the engagement of all sectors of society. Adapted from the source document.