CAPRISA Director delivers the Dr Suniti Solomon Memorial Oration
Professor Salim Abdool Karim, Director of CAPRISA delivered the Padmashri Dr. Suniti Solomon Memorial Oration, titled ‘HIV prevention in women in Africa – Challenges and opportunities’ at the HIVe meeting held in Mysore, India on 2nd – 3rd February. Hosted by the Asha Kirana Charitable Trust, the meeting brought together clinicians, scientists and researchers from a range of disciplines working in the HIV/AIDS field. Reducing high rates of HIV in young women in Africa, is key to the control of the global HIV epidemic said Abdool Karim.
In his presentation he said Africa has a staggering 70% of all people living with HIV followed by Nigeria and India and outlined the need to develop less-adherence dependent new strategies, particularly new HIV prevention tools for women. Abdool Karim paid tribute to Dr Suniti Solomon (1939-2015), who detected and documented the first cases of HIV infection in India in 1986 during her tenure as a professor of microbiology at Madras Medical College. She founded the Y R Gaitonde Centre for AIDS Research and Education (YRG CARE) - one of the first community-based treatment, research and education centers in India in 1993.