Conference on Consequences of AIDS in South Asia Will Be Held at Yale

The Yale Center for International and Area Studies (YCIAS) will host a conference titled “Health Crisis in South Asia: Socioeconomic and Opportunistic Disease Consequences of AIDS” at the Henry R. Luce Hall Auditorium, 34 Hillhouse Avenue, on February 18–19.

Attracting internationally–renowned scholars, the conference will convene in six sessions to discuss: “AIDS: An Overview of the Problem and the Government Response,” “Socioeconomic Consequences,” “Understanding Opportunistic Infections, Social Suffering and Stigma,” “Patents, Pharmaceuticals, Pricing and Generic Drugs Delivery,” “Where Do We Go from Here?” and “AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria.”

“It is paramount to discuss the health crisis and, in particular, AIDS in South Asia because of the wide–ranging socioeconomic consequences it has on life,” said T.N. Srinivasan, the Samuel C. Park Jr Professor of Economics at Yale, and chair of the South Asian Studies Council of YCIAS. “India has the second largest number of HIV infections in the world, following South Africa, and accounts for nearly 10 percent of the global HIV/AIDS prevalence. In the absence of implementation of strong and wide–ranging prevention programs, it is estimated that by 2010 India will have over 20 million HIV/AIDS cases,” Srinivasan added.

The keynote address, “Achieving the Millennium Development Goals on Health in South Asia,” will be delivered by renowned economist Jeffrey Sachs, Columbia University. Participants from around the globe include: S.Y. Quraishi, project director of India ’s National AIDS Control Organization (NACO); Suniti Solomon, Y. R. Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE), India; Suman Mehta, the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); Mead Over, senior economist in the Development Research Group, World Bank; Janet Fleischman, consultant to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); Veena Das, Johns Hopkins University; and William Haddad, Biogenerics and Cipla Company.

During dinner, Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, CSIS, will address the participants on “AIDS Epidemic: International Relations and Security Aspects.” Participants from Yale University include: Srinivasan, Rohini Pande, Nalini Tarakeshwar, Thomas Blom Hansen, Gerald Friedland, Michael Merson and Peter Salovey.

A program is available at http://www.yale.edu/ycias/southasia/events/aids.html

Convened by Srinivasan, the conference is sponsored by the South Asian Studies Council and the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA), with support from the Rustgi Family Fund, the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf fund at Yale, and the YCIAS. The conference is free and open to the public.

For more information please contact: south.asia@yale.edu or barbara.papacoda@yale.edu.