摘要:Numerous policy challenges continue to face the United States in the third decade of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, in both the health and foreign policy arenas. They include long-standing questions about care, treatment, prevention, and research, as well as new ones introduced by the changing nature of the epidemic itself and the need to balance demands for limited resources. These challenges concern the United States not only in its role as a world leader in combating a global epidemic, but in its decisions and focus at home, where the epidemic continues to take a toll. THE XIV INTERNATIONAL AIDS Conference will take place in Barcelona, Spain, in July 2002. This year's conference is notable on several fronts: it follows the Durban Conference, the first international AIDS conference to be held in a developing country deeply affected by the epidemic; it comes one year after an unprecedented special session of the United Nations General Assembly on HIV/AIDS; and it is the first international conference to take place since the events of September 11, 2001. The policy challenges facing the United States in the third decade of the pandemic are both long-standing—such as questions about care, treatment, prevention, and research—and new—including the challenges introduced by the changing nature of the epidemic itself and the need to balance demands for limited resources. The United States must meet these challenges both at home, where the epidemic continues to take a toll, and on the global front, where US leadership is needed to help combat the epidemic.