Eric Goosby, MD, the Obama administration’s global AIDS coordinator, will be the keynote speaker at a symposium on “HIV in the Developing World,” Saturday, Oct. 31, at the 47^thAnnual Meeting of IDSA, one of several global health-related sessions scheduled during the meeting, Oct. 29-Nov. 1, in Philadelphia.

During the 10:30 a.m. to noon session, Dr. Goosby will give an update on the U.S. response to the global AIDS epidemic. The United States has led worldwide efforts to curb the spread of HIV/AIDS through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), first enacted in 2003 and reauthorized last year. Dr. Goosby is charged with implementing the newly reauthorized program. 

The symposium will also feature presentations by Quarraisha Abdool Karim, MD, of the Mandela School of Medicine and Columbia University, and Mark Cotton, MD, of Stellenbosch University in South Africa, who are expected to discuss the deadly intersection of HIV and tuberculosis in the developing world, the importance of reducing HIV infection in women, and HIV treatment and prevention in infants and children. 

A second global health symposium, “HIV and Tuberculosis,” scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 31, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m., will focus on the twin epidemics of HIV and TB. William J. Burman, MD, medical director of the infectious diseases clinic of Denver Public Health, will detail the promise of new TB drugs and how innovations on the horizon could change the treatment of this ancient disease.

Other presenters will include Richard Chaisson, MD, FIDSA, of Johns Hopkins University; Gerald Friedland, MD, FIDSA, of Yale University; and Madhukar Pai, MD, of McGill University. Dr. Friedland will discuss the threat of drug-resistant TB, while Dr. Pai will address the challenge of diagnosing TB infection in HIV-positive patients.

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