Epidemiology

Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr

Leading AIDS researcher and global health advocate Wafaa El-Sadr, MD, MPH, director of the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs (ICAP) at the Mailman School of Public Health and professor of Epidemiology and Medicine, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science at Boston University’s 137th Commencement, on Sunday, May 16.

Dr. El-Sadr was one of five honorary degree recipients at the School’s commencement exercises, which included Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Edward Albee, Nobel Prize–winning chemist Osamu Shimomura, civil rights champion and attorney William T. Coleman, and attorney general of the United States and Commencement speaker Eric H. Holder, Jr.

Earlier that day, Dr. El-Sadr spoke at the Baccalaureate service where she shared her experiences as a medical student at Cairo University and, with support from colleagues and in partnership with many people around the world, spoke about her work bringing life-saving treatment to nearly a million individuals in 14 countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic has defined Dr. El-Sadr’s professional life. Dr. El-Sadr earned a medical degree from Cairo University, a master’s in epidemiology from the Mailman School, and a master’s in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

She also has served as chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Harlem Hospital Center in New York City, where she was instrumental in developing an internationally recognized HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis program focused on service, training, and research.

In 2008, she was named a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellow, also known as the Genius Award, for her creativity, originality, and potential to make important contributions for the future.

The Numbers Speak Volumes

In speaking about the mosaic of services that shaped the comprehensive HIV program at Harlem Hospital, as well her work in Africa, Dr. El-Sadr cited seemingly overwhelming numbers.

About 33 million people live with HIV/AIDS in the world, two thirds of them in Africa, one million here in the U.S., where the epidemic is often hidden and forgotten. In 2009 alone, noted Dr. El-Sadr, there were two million deaths globally due to AIDS. While “every single day there are more than 7,000 persons around the world who get HIV infected,” progress also has been made.

Dr. El-Sadr pointed out that the global effort dramatically increased access to life-saving HIV treatments in Africa. In 2002, only 100,000 people in Africa had this access. By the end of last year, that number rose to three million. However, she made strikingly clear that the “work is far from done.”

In closing, Dr. El-Sadr told the students at Boston University to “seek sources of strength, stride ahead, and be ready to move mountains, and along the way, be humble, be kind and generous, listen carefully, do not judge unjustly, and never succumb to the ‘culture of no.’”