UCSF special event to focus on women and HIV on March 7

By Jeff Sheehy

Women and HIV is the focus of an International Women’s Day symposium sponsored by UCSF that will be held on Friday, March 7.
Titled “AIDS Has a Woman’s Face: Gender, Power, and New Strategies for HIV Prevention,” the event is hosted by the UCSF Women’s Global Health Imperative, a research program of the UCSF AIDS Research Institute and the UCSF Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Sciences.

Noting that for the first time half of all adults living with HIV/AIDS in the world are women, symposium presenters will focus on innovative and promising HIV prevention strategies that empower women to protect themselves against HIV. The symposium takes its title from an op-ed piece in
The New York Times by United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan that appeared December 29, 2002 under the heading “In Africa, AIDS Has a Woman’s Face.”

The keynote address will be delivered by Helene Gayle, MD, MPH, director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s HIV/AIDS & TB Program and co-chair of the Global HIV Prevention Working Group.

MEDIA ARE INVITED TO COVER:
Friday, March 7, 2003
10:30 am to 12:30 pm
The Sir Francis Drake Hotel
450 Powell St.
San Francisco

THE PROGRAM IS AS FOLLOWS:
—Introduction
Nancy Padian, PhD, director, UCSF’s Women’s Global Health Imperative (WGHI) and director, International Programs at UCSF’s AIDS Research Institute, and Suellen Miller, PhD, CNM, associate director, WGHI.

—-Keynote Address
Helene Gayle, MD, MPH, director of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s HIV/AIDS & TB Program and co-chair of the Global HIV Prevention Working Group.

—-“Preventing HIV by Protecting the Cervix”
Nancy Padian, PhD, director, UCSF WGHI and director, International Programs at UCSF ARI.

—-“Women’s Choices: the Struggle for Gender Equity”
Kavita Ramdas, president and CEO, The Global Fund for Women

—-“Shaping the Health of Adolescents in Zimbabwe: the SHAZ! Project”
Hazel Chinake, BSc(Social Work), project coordinator, the University of Zimbabwe-UCSF Collaborative Research Programme in Women’s Health, Harare, Zimbabwe.

—-Closing Address
Sandra R. Hernández, MD, chief executive officer, The San Francisco Foundation.


Media who would like to cover the UCSF International Women’s Day Symposium or arrange interviews should call Jeff Sheehy in the UCSF News Office at 415/597-8165.

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