MISS UNIVERSE® WILL HOST A FORUM ON WOMEN AND HIV/AIDS
AT THE HARVARD AIDS INSTITUTE

19 OCTOBER 1999

BOSTON -Miss Universe, Mpule Kwelagobe will co-host Giving Voice to a Silent Epidemic: HIV/AIDS Care and Prevention for Women at HAI on Tuesday, October 19, 4:00-6:00 PM in the Harvard Medical School’s Carl W. Walter Amphitheater. Mpule Kwelagobe, the first woman from Botswana to hold the Miss Universe crown, travels the world speaking on behalf of her official cause, HIV/AIDS education and awareness.

Miss Universe will participate in this forum to lend an international perspective on clinical care issues facing women with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers, as well as the importance of women-controlled preventive methods. This forum is open to the public and will draw physicians, health care workers, students and people living with AIDS.

This forum will mark the first event in this new partnership between Miss Universe and HAI in the fight against AIDS. "In Botswana AIDS is the fastest growing epidemic, and I want to do all I can to help stop the spread not only in Africa, but all over the world." said Kwelagobe.

"With AIDS education and awareness as the official cause of the Miss Universe Pageant, we have helped to educate people on a global level. Not only does the reigning Miss Universe act as an AIDS activist, but all the other women who competed in the pageant play an important role by giving us a voice on a grass roots level in over 90 countries around the world. This unprecedented alliance formed with HAI will help us reach our ultimate goal, to eradicate HIV/AIDS," said Maureen J. Reidy, president of the Miss Universe Organization.

"It is fitting to have a speaker such as Mpule to discuss the reality of HIV and AIDS for women in Africa, where HIV prevalence rates in Botswana are among the highest in the world," said Richard Marlink, executive director of HAI.

HAI is a university-wide organization dedicated to conducting and catalyzing research to end the worldwide AIDS epidemic. The institute is involved in several HIV research partnerships in Botswana, including a collaboration with the Ministry of Health to prevent transmission of HIV from mothers to infants. The forum is cosponsored by HAI and Harvard Medical School with support by unrestricted educational grants from Agouron Pharmaceuticals, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck and Company, and others.


The Miss Universe Organization, producer of the MISS UNIVERSE®, MISS USA®, AND MISS TEEN USA®, Pageants, is a a Donald J. Trump and CBS Television Network partnership.