2009 Hope is a Vaccine Award Ceremony

The GAIA Vaccine Foundation “Hope is a Vaccine Award 2009″ will go to two visionary architects of global TB/AIDS Foundations, for their ability to identify public-private partnerships as one means of solving some of the worlds’ greatest health problems – access to AIDS care -and developing new TB vaccines.

Chief awardees: Global AIDS care visionary Ira Magaziner and Global TB vaccine visionary Carol Nacy

Hope is a Vaccine Award – HIV/AIDS Care Visionary and Architect – Ira Magaziner

More than 90% of the 33.2 million people living with HIV/AIDS in the world live in developing countries, where access to treatment is limited. For HIV-infected individuals, access to health care is life saving, whether in the U.S. or in the developing world, and there is no one who has worked harder at improving access to health care than Ira Magaziner, former advisor to the Clinton administration and chief architect of the Clinton HIV AIDS Initiative (CHAI). CHAI is working to close the access to care gap in developing world countries by negotiating lower prices for lifesaving antiretroviral treatment, and by working with governments to improve the national health care systems required to deliver crucial medicines. Ira Magaziner makes his home in Rhode Island when he is not travelling for the Clinton Foundation.

GAIA Vaccine Foundation is also celebrating the work of Rhode Islanders Ed Wood and Anne Sliney of the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative on World AIDS Day 2009.

Ed Wood is yet another Rhode Islander who works tirelessly for Clinton HIV AIDS Initiative. Ed represents CHAI in Africa and Asia, helping launch pediatric and rural programs, and helping expand its scope of work beyond ARVs to increase access by supporting governments initiatives to deliver HIV/AIDS services to underserved populations, increasing countries’ human resource capacity to deliver care and treatment, and preventing the transmission of the disease from mothers to their children.

Rhode Islander Anne Sliney also works with the Clinton HIV/AIDS Initiative, helping nurses and health officials in resource-poor countries fight human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.  Her experience as a front-line adherence monitor in Providence enables her to provide guidance and mentoring to nurses in countries hard hit by AIDS and nursing shortages.

Hope is a Vaccine Award – Sequella/Aeras Global TB Foundation Visionary and Architect – Carol Nacy

Carol Nacy founded the Sequella Global Tuberculosis Foundation, now known as the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation in 1997. She was inspired by reports that no new drugs or vaccines had been discovered in more than 30 years for the number one infectious disease killer (Tuberculosis) and won an initial round of Gates Foundation support for the initiative in 1999. Although no longer working directly with Sequella Foundation, Carol Nacy continues her work on TB, developing drugs at Sequella Inc. in partnership with Leo Einck.