On Friday, the Senate confirmed Dr. Eric Goosby as the new US global AIDS coordinator, an ambassador-at-large post based in the State Department. Goosby, a professor of clinical medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, will be responsible for overseeing the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
As a young intern at San Francisco General Hospital, Goosby was among the first physicians to see the devastating effect of AIDS at the start of the city's epidemic. In 1991, he was named the first director of the Ryan White AIDS CARE Program, marshaling federal resources to fight the disease domestically.
During the Clinton administration, Goosby served as director of HIV/AIDS policy in the Department of Health and Human Services and as a chief presidential advisor on AIDS-related issues. Since 2001, Goosby has been CEO and chief medical officer of the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, an international non-profit founded by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF).
"What's unusual about Eric is that he already comes into the arena with a lot of global experience," said Mark Cloutier, SFAF's head. "He helped to write the national AIDS plans in Rwanda, South Africa, and the Bahamas. He has been very involved for the past three years in China, helping the government to develop a system for the identification of people who are HIV-positive and to develop an effective treatment strategy."
In many places in sub-Saharan Africa, southeast Asia, and Eastern Europe, the epidemic is growing," Cloutier said. "Eric has a special depth of knowledge about working with the populations most at risk."
06/20/09
UNITED STATES: University of California-San Francisco Nominee Confirmed AIDS Chief
Source: San Francisco Chronicle:: Jim Doyle; Courtesy of the CDC National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention