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One of the major insights that has always guided the
work of the HIV Center is that a virus knows no
boundaries. While most researchers were still focusing
on men, we recognized that women were also highly at
risk, and we began including children and adolescents
when the majority of studies were limited to adults.
Early on, we also anticipated that the AIDS research
agenda could not be limited to the North American and Western
European cities in which most researchers were based, and
initiated a program of international research with a
special emphasis on Africa. This spring in particular,
there has been an exceptional concentration of
activities relating to our engagement with Africa, as
reflected in this issue of the HIV Center E-Newsletter.
In this E-Newsletter, you will read about new research in
such understudied areas as same-sex behaviors in Sub-Saharan
Africa and anal sex practices among both women and men.
You will learn more about a conference on same-sex
sexuality co-sponsored by the HIV Center in South
Africa, as well as consulting work undertaken in
Tanzania to ease the plight of AIDS orphans.
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Our unique commitment to women's prevention needs is also
reflected in the new MAC AIDS Fund Leadership Initiative for
emerging leaders on gender relations in South Africa and a "Gender and HIV/AIDS Think Tank" to
be held in anticipation of the 2008
International AIDS Conference. Our engagement with the
continent also includes West Africa, where one of our
postdoctoral fellows recently laid the groundwork for
his future research, as well as North Africa, where I
participated in an NIMH conference in Tunisia. This
issue of the E-Newsletter also features news about recent commentaries on HIV prevention
published in The American Journal of Public Health
and The Lancet with particular implications for
AIDS in Africa. We
also anticipate new developments over the course of the
next year with regard to our research agenda in Africa.
One of the most exciting of these will be building new
partnerships with the International Center for AIDS
Care and Prevention (ICAP), which is based at the
Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr,
the Director of ICAP and our long-time collaborator,
presented the outstanding work of ICAP in promoting the
roll-out and scale-up of antiretroviral treatment
programs at our Grand Rounds this spring. We look
forward to working with ICAP and other partners in
continuing and expanding our historic commitment to
engaging Africa.
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By Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D.
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