In celebration of World AIDS Day, the Global Alliance to Immunize against AIDS (GAIA) Vaccine Foundation will honor the humanitarian work of seven noted HIV/AIDS advocates.
This year’s award recipients are:
*Daniel Halperin (Harvard University), for uncovering the connection between lack of circumcision and AIDS transmission and for advocating family planning and access to care as a low-cost means for stemming the spread of AIDS.
Dr. Halperin has conducted epidemiological and ethnographic research for over thirty years on a number of health and sociocultural issues in Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa and other developing regions. Since completing his doctoral training in medical and cultural anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley in 1995, his work has mainly focused on the heterosexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections. He has had extensive involvement in the design, management and evaluation of prevention, care and other HIV-AIDS programs, and continues to be actively engaged in collaborative endeavors with UNAIDS, WHO, CDC, UNICEF, Gates Foundation and other international partners in developing and disseminating policy-setting technical consultations, guidance documents, etc.
- Doctors Frederick Altice (Yale University School of Medicine), David Paar (University of Texas Medical Branch), Joe Bick (California Medical Facility), David Thomas (Nova Southwestern) and David Wohl (University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill), for their pioneering work in the fight against AIDS in U.S. prisons.
These physicians all specialize in infectious disease, with a special focus in HIV/AIDS medication adherence and access to care, and have worked for many years among incarcerated inmates with HIV infection. They have fought for simple HIV prevention measures such as increased testing, access to HIV care, and distribution of condoms with some degree of success. Despite significant institutional resistance in most states, these doctors have succeeded in raising the standard of care for a group with one of the highest national rates of HIV infection: incarcerated individuals. - Jesse Creel, grassroots AIDS advocate who has long championed the development of an HIV/AIDS vaccine, is a self-taught AIDS vaccine expert. Jesse is relentless in his pursuit of information about HIV vaccines and HIV treatments, scrutinizing each new piece of information as it is published for its relevance to individuals who are at highest risk of HIV and who, because of lack of education, poverty or distance, have no voice in the development of the vaccine. His email updates have garnered Jesse a devoted following among HIV vaccine researchers and developers, from the top echelons of the NIH to the front lines of the epidemic. His first pre-Katrina forays into AIDS research were enabled by a keyboard connected to a TV screen (WebTV). His most recent efforts are carried out in post-Katrina safety, on donated laptops (from EpiVax). He is self-taught, fearless, and tireless. His insights are at times startling, at times shocking, and always on point.
Past recipients of the “Hope is a Vaccine” award include: Judy Lieberman, Senior Investigator at the CBR Institute and Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and Leigh Blake, Founder of Keep A Child Alive (KCA), which provides vitally needed anti-retroviral medicine to children and families with AIDS in the developing world (www.keepachildalive.org); Jeff and Sonia Sachs of the Millennium Village Project; Jose Esparza, MD, and AIDS expert who works with the Gates Foundation; and Peggy Johnston, Ph.D., Associate Director of the Vaccine and Prevention Research Program in the Division of AIDS at the National Institutes of Health.
On World AIDS Day, December 1, 2008, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) will release new data on the global HIV epidemic. According to that report, more than 33.2 million people are living with HIV throughout the world. Of these, 22 million live in sub-Saharan Africa. In 2007 alone, there were 2.7 million new HIV infections – the equivalent of about five persons every minute. The global rate of new infections exceeds the number of deaths by 700,000 persons per year, which underscores that the epidemic is continuing to expand, unabated.
The mission of GAIA Vaccine Foundation is Global Vaccine, Global Access. It is the goal of GAIA to distribute the HIV vaccine developed as a result of this project at no profit in developing countries. Initial studies of the GAIA HIV/AIDS vaccine are being carried out by Dr. Annie De Groot, who was recently named the Director of the Institute for Immunology and Information at the University of Rhode Island, in collaboration with Dr. Mickey Lally and Dr. Ken Mayer at the Miriam Hospital and Bill Martin at EpiVax, a Rhode Island based bioinformatics company.
The Global Alliance to Immunize against AIDS (GAIA) is working hard to curb HIV infections on a global scale. GAIA’s mission is to promote the development of a globally relevant and globally accessible vaccine against AIDS. However, since the development of such a vaccine is years away, GAIA also coordinates HIV education, prevention and access to care programs in Providence and Bamako, working to stop HIV until a vaccine is developed.
In keeping with these objectives, GAIA has built the Hope Center Clinic, a new HIV treatment center in Sikoro, Mali. Sikoro is one of the poorest neighborhoods of Bamako, the capital city of one of the poorest countries in the world, and consequently has very high HIV prevalence when compared to the rest of the city. This center will serve tens of thousands of people who currently have no access to HIV testing and treatment. GAIA is doing its part to provide the poorest people of Bamako with access to HIV prevention, education and treatment programs.
GAIA’s 6th Annual “Hope is a Vaccine” Award Gala will take place at the Federal Reserve Restaurant, located at 60 Dorrance Street in Providence on Thursday, December 4th at 6:30 p.m., and For more information about the GAIA Vaccine Foundation and the “Hope is a Vaccine Awards,” please visit www.GAIAVaccine.org.