(gentle music)
- This is Reginald from New York, I do know him,
Reggie Brown.
- And have you been working...
This is my very first Ryan White Conference.
I'm so excited about it.
I feel like I've been coming full cirlce.
I was diagnosed as positive in 2013
and once I didn't know where to turn.
I didn't want to be the stigma
so I moved to Philadelphia
'cause I knew that they had the wraparound service.
After receiving those tools
and getting my HIV 101 certification, I moved back home
and now I'm a HIV navigator
working for the Department of Health.
Can you believe that?
- We gather today with the united mission
to improve the health outcome
for people living with HIV
and to end the HIV epidemic.
- It is events like this one
that remind us that HRSA is not alone in our mission.
- We know the front lines of the fight against HIV
are not in Washington conference rooms.
They're right where you work every day.
- Conway, South Carolina.
- Oakland, California.
- Chicago.
- Metro Atlanta.
- I am from St. Louis, Missouri,
home of the 314, the show me state.
She had basically just told me I had tested for HIV
and I tested positive.
It's not about me at this point.
It's about hearing the story,
using the facts,
knowing the facts
and just being compassionate.
- I want to say you're inspirational.
- Thank you.
- Tuesday night, I'm sitting in my bed, 11:30 at night
and I get this text message from somebody that I knew
in Broward County
and it was like, "Hey,
"I know that we don't really know each other
"but I know that you have HIV
"and I haven't told anybody yet."
That's why I do it.
- I remember every key person
that has been a part of my journey.
From the pharmacist that called me
when I was on a substance abuse
every night at nine o'clock to take my medication
to my best friend
when I was getting out
of the Salvation Army treatment center
who said that you can come live with me
to the people that walked me through my process
of taking medication
and getting to my doctor's appointment,
to the people that challenged me to not die.
See my network challenged me to live.
- This community is my life blood.
It's the energy of why I'm continuing to do this work
after 22 years.
I do it because of the people.
It's the relationships, it's the community.
(audience applause)
- The people living with HIV in Puerto Rico are in care,
they are taken care of.
- The mission of the Ryan White Program
and the clinics and programs it supports is clear,
connect Americans living with HIV
to the treatment and support they need
to live healthy, flourishing lives.
- The Ryan White Program
ensures that people living with HIV
have access to quality health care.
- Ryan White definitely works.
You can see that both in the data
with viral load suppression
and you can also see that
in the communities that are impacted,
people that are actually living full long lives, happy lives
and due directly to Ryan White.
- When a person living with HIV walks in your doors,
walks in to our programs, into our services,
they achieve 85.9% viral suppression.
- In 2017, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program
served nearly 535,000 clients,
a majority of them who were living with HIV.
This represents over half of all the people
diagnosed with HIV in this country,
a mantra we live by at HAB:
Data drives program and informs its direction.
- I'm looking for a breakthrough cure
and I think we've come that far
that it looks like one research that might break through
for us to say aha, that we are there.
- If we don't implement,
in other words, pass the baton to people like yourselves
to implement the science,
we will never end the epidemic.
And I do believe we will.
- Well I'm an optimist.
So I do feel good about where we're going.
I'm looking around,
I'm seeing so many new young faces,
it makes me very hopeful.
- I could've never thought
in the past couple of years of my life
that I would be at where I'm at.
I went form stigma to success.
- When I first tested positive HIV,
I lived with HIV.
So today HIV lives with me
'cause I'm in complete control.
- I want to thank Ryan White's mother
for all of her hard work
over the many, many, many years.
Thank you.