AVOL Kentucky Urges Community Support to Prevent a Public Health Setback
Lexington, KY (May 5, 2025) – AVOL Kentucky, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending HIV in the Commonwealth, is sounding the alarm as recent federal cuts threaten to reverse decades of progress in HIV prevention, education, and care.
In early 2025, several key members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) resigned in protest of policy shifts and proposed budget reductions that would undermine the federal government’s Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative. These resignations follow a pattern of political disengagement from public health priorities and signal what many fear is a return to dangerously high infection rates if action is not taken.
“After forty plus years of fighting the fight, these changes are counter intuitive to everything we know about how to END HIV, for good,” said Jon Parker, Executive Director of AVOL Kentucky. “In the past decade medical science has brought forward so many innovations in treatment and prevention that it makes no sense to quit now. Instead, current leadership would propose to dismantle and dismiss the very infrastructure we’ve worked for years to build, especially in underserved communities where health disparities already exist.”
One way community members can take action is by participating in the Kentucky AIDS Walk on Sunday, May 18, in Lexington. This annual event is a powerful show of solidarity for those living with HIV and a critical fundraiser for AVOL’s work in prevention, testing, housing, and care.
Registration is free and open now at KYAIDSwalk.com.
AVOL Kentucky’s prevention programs, connectivity to PrEP, HIV testing initiatives, and housing services are made possible through a combination of federal support, private donations, and local partnerships. With federal resources being pulled abruptly, local involvement is more crucial than ever. “Our mission is to end HIV in Kentucky,” Parker added. “We won’t stop, but we will need more help from our neighbors, our donors, and our community partners to ensure we don’t go backward.”
For more information about AVOL Kentucky’s work or to support its mission, visit AVOLKY.org.