In September, 193 countries came together at the United Nations in New York City to adopt an agenda that aims to create a prosperous future for every person around the world, as well as our planet. And at a scale seen never before, issues key to girls and women were incorporated in that fifteen-year plan, known as the Sustainable Development Goals, or Global Goals. These Global Goals, for the first time, also include specific measures focused on ending violence against women.

And the time for focusing on girls and women has never been more critical. UNAIDS reported that more than 7,000 girls are infected with HIV every week, with 30% more adolescent girls HIV-positive in sub-Saharan Africa then at the beginning of the epidemic. What’s contributing to this phenomena and what can be done to stop it? Global Daily caught up with Ambassador Deborah Birx, MD, who oversees the U.S. Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), on her focus to swiftly and effectively reduce HIV infections among young women in the region through DREAMS. Launched one year ago today, DREAMS (determined, resilient, AIDS-free, mentored and safe women) is a public-private partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Nike Foundation. What follows is our interview with Ambassador Birx lightly edited for clarity.

Global Daily: Why are you so focused on adolscent girls?

Deborah Birx: I was privileged to raise two daughters, and I think when you realize what young women face today, no matter where they’re born, they face a constellation of issues today that is so much more stressful, so much more difficult, and with choices they have to make that are so much greater than the choices we had to make. To watch them navigate and realize if they had been in sub-Saharan Africa, the risk for them would have been enormous and who would have been there for them. We have an opportunity to be there for adolescent girls now in a way that is really comprehensive because President Obama supports it, the First Lady supports it, the Secretary of State supports it, Deputy Secretary Heather Higginbottom supports it. We have that support at every level that says, “Yes, we believe in it, this is important. The youth of the world are a valuable asset for our future.” And we have the tools now, so to say we can’t- how can we do anything but this?

Global Daily: In your travels are there any girls that you’ve met that inspired you?

Deborah Birx: What I’m always struck by, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, but also here in the United States, is that the women who were prenatally infected with HIV and are now in their twenties have such a tremendous voice and viewpoint. Because you can imagine if you were in sub-Saharan Africa twenty years ago, for the first ten years you had to figure out how to survive. There were no drugs. So many of those women had low CD4 counts, multiple episodes of TB, had nearly died five and six times, yet had the fortitude that when they heard about a program, they got enrolled, got on treatment. And you can just imagine what they can do when they translate that will to live into the will to change communities— they are amazingly fearless. They have voices that can reach places that we never even thought we needed to reach. So every time I travel now, I try to meet young women in their twenties who were infected at birth. Their voices need to be harnessed and brought to bear, because they are really insightful and have a great message for adolescent girls because they’ve experienced having HIV, and having to date, and what that means, and the side effects of the drugs. We sometimes get very complacent— that we can just take the medication and we’ll be fine, but there are side effects. And they can be such a voice on what it’s like to live with HIV every day, 24 hours a day, week after week, month after month. And it’s just…I’m just impressed by them. Every time. No matter where I go.

I have been stunned by the sacrifice that women have made in Africa since the beginning of the epidemic.

Global Daily: As we look towards 2030 and the new Global Goals, what’s your hope for this group of women 15 years from now?

Deborah Birx: Well I was really, incredibly happy that President Obama used his speech at the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals Summit to talk about the United States’ commitment to unfinished business, whether it be malaria, whether it be TB, or whether it be HIV. The really important thing is yes, the United States has contributed a significant amount of money towards global health, but I think equally important is that the United States has provided that beacon of leadership that says this is important, and we’re going to figure out how to create an AIDS-free generation and have a different future for this world. So to me, that’s incredibly inspirational. I’ve been in government now for almost 36 years. It’s a privilege to be in government because government is so much more agile and flexible and with ability to grasp on to these really core concepts and move them in a way that you can’t do any other place in any other group. I’ve always believed that when you have this window of opportunity, and you have the data and information that UNAIDS and the United Nations has provided to us, to not grab onto that and not take this moment in time when we’re all aligned in recognizing the importance of the adolescent girl – it’s a moment, we’re going to seize it. We’re going to make a difference.

We’re going to have a lot of confident, amazing young women out there if we can keep them HIV-free, if we can keep them out of child marriage, if we can keep them in schools and I think if we look at all of those issues about early pregnancy and HIV/AIDS risk and early marriage there’s a common theme and that’s the important role of education. So, we’re very excited about what Ambassador Russell has done with Let Girls Learn with the First Lady’s office because we’re not only bringing that piece to DREAMS but we launched a program with half a billion dollars to keep adolescent girls HIV-free.

Global Daily: Was there a specific moment when you became passionate about working with girls and HIV/AIDS?

Deborah Birx: I was really privileged to work in primary amino deficiencies for Walter Reed and the NIH in the early 80s in sub-Saharan Africa before Global Fund and before PEPFAR. All of the sudden, our young soldiers were coming in and dying. You just couldn’t fathom it. And then, in the United States, drugs got developed, and by 1995 and 1996 we had this amazing cocktail, and my patients who were alive in 1995 and 1996 are alive today. And then I started working in Africa, and seeing all of that all over again, without medication. A lot of programs tried to do what’s known as preventing-mother-to-child-transmission, and when you think about what you’re asking a mother to do, you’re asking a mother, no matter what her age, to come forward and be tested to save her child. Not to save herself, because there wasn’t anything for her. But it was only to save her child. And mother after mother came forward, and sacrificed everything. I mean the mother-in-laws were mad at them, they got thrown out of their households, they got stigmatized, they got discriminated against, and they did all of that to save their child. How can you not then do everything to keep that child HIV-free? I have been stunned by the sacrifice that women have made in Africa since the beginning of the epidemic. And I think all of us owe it to those children that these mothers saved and sacrificed their lives for, to keep them from getting HIV.

And we have the tools now, so to say we can’t—how can we do anything but this?

Global Daily: Following the adoption of the new Global Goals, the international community is also looking towards the climate summit COP21 in Paris. Do you see climate change connected to the HIV/AIDS epidemic?

Deborah Birx: I do because a lot of the issues related to climate change relate to the communities, and we won’t be successful in HIV/AIDS if communities don’t understand the risks, if communities don’t value young girls. And it’s the same value and the same value chain that you need them to put into the climate and saving the planet. So to me they’re universal goals that are shared. And plus climate change can totally change infectious patterns. I consider climate change linked completely. You know we’ve had all these zoonotic events, HIV is a zoonotic event—it came from animals to humans—Ebola is a zoonotic event, Avian Flu is a zoonotic event, but with climate change and disruption of climate patterns—changes in rainfall, changes in drought—the chances of a new infectious disease and the a new zoonotic event increases each time. So yes, I worry about this all the time. Microbes are fascinating, but they don’t care about us. So we have to figure out how to care about them and stop them where they are.

Ambassador-at-Large, Deborah L. Birx, M.D., is the Coordinator of the United States Government Activities to Combat HIV/AIDS and U.S. Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy.

For the 16 days between November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women and December 10, Human Rights Day, Global Daily will feature a special interview series focused on the rights of girls in conjunction with the #16Days campaign, which seeks to spur action around the world to end violence against women.