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hiv/aids and darfur

Overview

In conjunction with the 'Big Problems' course on "The Biology and Sociology of AIDS," taught by Professors Harold Pollack (SSA) and Jose Quintans (BSCD), this lecture series contributes to knowledge about HIV/AIDS, and promotes networks of researchers, teachers, and students on campus and in the Chicago area concerning these issues.

HIV prevention and treatment are coming to be understood as human rights concerns, especially during civil war and genocide. Human rights abuses spread HIV directly through sexual violence and coercion of women and girls, and indirectly through poverty and social dislocation which expose individuals to diverse behavioral risks. Within societies that display tenuous commitment to individuals and groups facing highest HIV risk, the failure to respect human rights poses other obstacles to HIV prevention and AIDS treatment.

Civil strife disrupts access to or even basic provision of health care, especially in refugee camps. Sudan (among countries in the Middle East and North Africa) "has by far the biggest AIDS epidemic" (2006 AIDS Epidemic Update /UNAIDS), and Darfur is reported to be at risk of a mounting HIV/AIDS epidemic (allafrica.com, 12/7/06).

This lecture series invites experts to give public lectures on campus regarding the connection between health care and human rights, medical issues in HIV prevention and care, the experiences of individuals living with AIDS, and the history of domestic and global AIDS policy. We will focus on particular issues of special pertinence to Darfur: the impact of social conflict on HIV risk, the particular role of sexual violence, and strategies to treat men and women who have experienced these traumas.

Lecture Series

“Rape & HIV: Weapons of War, Tools of Torture”
Mary Fabri, Psy.D.Director of the Marjorie Kovler Center for the Treatment of Survivors of Torture
blankWednesday, January 23, 2008
Click here to listen.
Also see: Students, faculty utilize Darfur Action, Education Fund (The University of Chicago Chronicle. February 21, 2008, Vol. 27 No. 10)

"HIV/AIDS in 2008: Much Accomplished, Much to Do"
Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health
blankWednesday, February 20th, 2008
3:00 - 4:30 p.m
Reception to follow (4:30 - 5:30)
Biological Sciences Learning Center (BSLC) 115
924 East 57th Street, Chicago

Co-sponsors

 

 



This is an electronmicrograph of an HIV particle budding from a cell.

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