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In August 2006 Mark Dybul was sworn in as the new US Global AIDS coordinator to oversee the US response to the global HIV/AIDS crisis and specifically to direct the implementation of the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The plan--a 5-year US$15 billion initiative--is the largest programme ever launched to target a single disease. "The President saw tackling the HIV/ AIDS pandemic as a moral imperative to save lives restore hope and to build local capacity to transform the African subcontinent. I want to make clear that the President sets the direction and the goals and that I wouldnt be here if it wasnt for him" Dybul says. Billy Pick a USAID colleague and a friend of Dybuls told The Lancet "Mark is determined to make PEPFAR work but he is not big on being in the limelight. He is very passionate about science and his patients and fully embraces the embodiment of an academic researcher. Facts and evidence are what matters to him. He is not seen as a politician so there is no agenda". (excerpt)

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