L to R: Marie Marcelle Deschamps, M.D. (physician at GHESKIO), Mr. Christian Conan (French ambassador to Haiti), Warren Johnson, Jr., M.D., (director, WCMC Center for Global Health), Mr. Alain Merieux (president, BioMerieux), Dr. Jean Pape (founding and current director, GHESKIO), Ambassador Janet Ann Sanderson (US ambassador to Haiti)
On February 10, Dr. Warren D. Johnson, Jr., former Chief of Infectious Diseases, and now Director of the Center for Global Health within the Department of Medicine's Infectious Diseases Division, was honored during an inauguration ceremony, in which a new clinical facility was named after him in Port au Prince, Haiti: The Warren D. Johnson, Jr. Medical Center. This clinical facility is one of two new buildings on the new campus of GHESKIO, which is a French acronym for the Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi's sarcoma and Infectious Diseases.
Founded in 1982, GHESKIO is the first institution in the world exclusively dedicated to the fight against HIV/AIDS. The construction of the new clinical facility was sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development and will double the space available at GHESKIO for research, training and clinical services. A second laboratory building was also inaugurated at the ceremony and was named in honor of Rodolphe Merieux, the late son of the President of the French Biotechnology company, BioMerieux, Lyon, Alain Merieux.
L to R: Dr. Warren Johnson, Jr. (director, WCMC Center for Global Health), Mr. Alain Merieux (president, BioMerieux), Dr. Jean Pape (founding and current director, GHESKIO), Dr. Andrew Schafer (chairman, Department of Medicine, WCMC)
The dedication ceremony of the Medical Center was attended by over 300 people including local supporters, international visitors, and Haitian dignitaries. International attendees included Dr. Andrew I. Schafer, Chairman of the Department of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as individuals from the NIH and multiple universities such as Vanderbilt University, NYU, Dartmouth College, and others. Haitian dignitaries who attended the ceremony included the Minister of Health and Population, Dr Gabriel Thimothee; US Ambassador to Haiti, Mrs. Janet Ann Sanderson, and French Ambassador to Haiti, Mr. Christian Conan.
GHESKIO was founded by eight Haitian health care workers including Dr. Jean Pape, who is the current Director of GHESKIO and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College. GHESKIO has collaborated with Dr Johnson and other WCMC faculty since its inception. Research at GHESKIO has resulted in over 100 articles published in major journals, including the first article describing the characteristics of HIV/AIDS in the developing world, which appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1983.
Throughout Dr. Johnson's career, he has been committed to research and training in resource-poor countries. He has established outstanding long-term training programs in Brazil (1969), Haiti (1982), and Tanzania (2006), which are paradigms of global health collaboration. He has conducted innovative research and his approach has served as a vehicle for the training of several generations of outstanding Haitian and Brazilian investigators.
Dr. Schafer with students from around the world who receive training at GHESKIO. This group represents three campuses of Cornell University, four different colleges, and four different degrees.
Front row (L to R): Rebecca Heidkamp (PhD candidate, College of Human Ecology - Ithaca, Division of International Nutrition); Cynthia Riviere (MS candidate, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Program in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research); Patrice Espinosa (DMD candidate, Weill Cornell Medical College, Fogarty Scholar Program); Maryam Shafaee (MD candidate, Weill Cornell Medical College - Qatar); Andrew Schafer, MD (chairman, Department of Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College); Linda Severe (MS candidate, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Program in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research); Oksana Ocheretina, PhD (research associate in the Department of Medicine working full time in Haiti); Macarthur Charles, MD, PhD (MS candidate, Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Program in Clinical Epidemiology and Health Services Research)
Back row (L to R): Dan Fitzgerald, MD (chair of Weill Cornell International Education Committee); Karl Bezak (MD candidate, Weill Cornell Medical College, Fogarty Scholar Program); Peter Wright, MD (professor of pediatrics from Dartmouth College and long-time collaborator with GHESKIO); Jean Pape, MD (founding and current Director of GHESKIO); Warren Johnson, MD (director of Global Health Center, Weill Cornell Medical College, Honoree of Warren Johnson, Jr. Medical Center of GHESKIO); Mathew Goodwin (MD candidate, Weill Cornell Medical College)