The Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine presented its Lifetime Achievement Award for Scientific Contributions to Dr. Max Essex, Chair of the Harvard AIDS Initiative (HAI), on November 1st. Essex received the award “for his work on animal and human retrovirus research and his leadership and great impact in the public health of Botswana.”
By Martha Henry Plan A As a young adult, Kate Powis loved to solve puzzles. Her father was a Secret Service agent and she planned to follow in his footsteps. She took college courses in criminal justice, financing her education by working as a “loss prevention” officer at a chain of department stores. She questioned shoplifters and employees caught stealing, but she didn’t enjoy the work. She often found herself…
In 1981, the Centers for Disease Control reported that five gay men in Los Angeles had become ill with a rare form of pneumonia. The report was the first official description of a syndrome that would later be called AIDS. Three decades later, 30 million people have died from the virus.
By Martha Henry You may ask why Dr. Oscar Kashala, who trained as a researcher at the Harvard AIDS Initiative (HAI), is running for president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Or you could ask why anyone would want to be president of a country most experts consider a “failed state.”
Much has changed in a decade. In 2001, President Festus Mogae of Botswana identified the growing threat of HIV/AIDS as a national crisis and announced that his government would provide free antiretroviral (ARV) therapy to eligible patients. This initiative, at the time without precedent in Africa, posed significant challenges to Botswana’s already overburdened healthcare system, especially in terms of trained medical workers. Few doctors or nurses had experience in HIV/AIDS…
Though most of their work is done quietly behind the scenes, Deeda Blair and Maurice Tempelsman have contributed immensely to the growth and success of the Harvard AIDS Initiative (HAI). To publicly recognize their work, Julio Frenk, Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), presented them both with the Eighth Annual Volunteer Leadership Award at a ceremony on October 20th.
