Asia Russell

ASIA RUSSELL

Executive Director, Health GAP

Asia Russell has been a leader in the fight against HIV for over 20 years, first as a community organizer and treatment activist in Philadelphia, and ultimately as part of the group that founded Health GAP in 1999, serving as its Director of International Policy until 2014.

“The global AIDS crisis isn’t over—particularly for communities marginalized by racism, anti-gender threats, criminalization, and xenophobia. But our leaders are failing to muster the political will that is needed to reach the global target of defeating HIV as a public health threat by 2030. Every day we are fighting back against growing anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, a widening AIDS funding gap, and extremist politicians who are dead set on dismantling lifesaving HIV and human rights programs if given the chance. We have to finish the job, by flattening inequities in access to the best available HIV prevention and treatment, defeating colonial-era laws criminalizing communities, and holding the biggest
HIV funders, PEPFAR and the Global Fund, accountable to the demands of the people who use their programs.”