Dispatches from the AIDS Pandemic

Dispatches from the AIDS Pandemic is a unique firsthand account from three public health leaders of CDC's early response to AIDS. Drawing in part on interviews from the CDC's AIDS oral history project, the authors trace the evolution of AIDS from newly recognized disease to pandemic. The first section outlines the earliest days of the epidemic within the United States and the initial prevention strategies. The second section expands the borders of the response to Africa and Thailand, where CDC conducted its first international work on AIDS. The final section closes with an overview of the scientific and public health advancements that followed and the historic community activism that spurred essential funding and partnerships for the development of life-saving interventions.
Authentic and insightful, Dispatches from the AIDS Pandemic provides an authoritative account of an epidemic and its central role in the expansion of global public health.

Kevin M. De Cock, MD, joined CDC as an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer in 1986. He was Founding Director of the CDC's HIV/AIDS research site in Cote d'Ivoire, Director of the CDC's Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention-Surveillance and Epidemiology, Founding Director of the CDC's Center for Global Health, Director of the CDC's work in Kenya, and Team Lead for Ebola responses in West and Central Africa. He is also former Professor of Medicine and International Health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and former Director of HIV/AIDS at the World Health Organization.

Harold W. Jaffe, MD, began his work at CDC in its Venereal Disease Control Division. In 1981, he joined the initial Task Force on Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections. He held numerous leadership positions across the agency's HIV/AIDS program, including Director of the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention, and later served as CDC's Associate Director for Science. From 2004 to 2010, Dr. Jaffe was Professor and Head of the Department of Public Health at the University of Oxford, where he established the University's first MSc course in Global Health Science.

James W. Curran, MD, MPH, is former Dean and Professor of Epidemiology at the Rollins School of Public Health and current Emeritus Director of the Center for AIDS Research at Emory University. From 1971-1995, he worked at CDC, where in 1981 he was tapped to lead the agency's newly formed Task Force on Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections. He continued to lead CDC's evolving programs in HIV/AIDS throughout the 1980s and early 1990s before joining Emory.

Robin Moseley, MAT, joined CDC in 1989 as a writer-editor, with assignment to the AIDS division. She continued working in AIDS and other infectious diseases at CDC throughout her career, focusing on developing scientific and policy documents and presentations and facilitating external partnerships.