Leading CDC Expert in HIV and Injection Drug Use Joins Pangaea
Rich Needle to focus on HIV treatment and prevention programs targeting IDUs
San Francisco, January 18, 2008 — Richard Needle, PhD, MPH, has joined Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation as Vice President for Special Populations and Senior Project Manager.
Dr. Needle will be responsible for assisting Pangaea's partners in the planning and implementation of HIV prevention and treatment initiatives that target high-risk populations, including IDUs, MSM, women and commercial sex workers.
Dr. Needle, who worked for the U.S. government for seventeen years, was previously Team Leader for HIV Prevention Among Injection Drug Using Populations for the Global AIDS Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2001-2007). As Team Leader his responsibilities included developing strategic plans and administering ongoing technical assistance programs for countries with epidemics of HIV in vulnerable populations.
Pangaea CEO and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Eric Goosby commented: "During his tenure at the CDC, Rich made a tremendous contribution to the global effort to prevent the spread of HIV among injection drug users and other high risk populations. Pangaea's recent efforts in China and Ukraine have focused in part on developing integrated drug and HIV treatment and prevention programs for IDUs - having a leading expert like Rich join the Pangaea team will allow us to expand and build on these programs to address emerging IDU-driven epidemics around the world."
Dr. Needle added: "Pangaea is establishing a real niche in the development of integrated prevention and treatment programs for HIV+ IDUs that include substitution therapy and ARVs. This is a very exciting opportunity for me: to be able to continue my HIV work with vulnerable populations and to continue contributing to the global efforts in the field of HIV prevention and treatment."
From 2004 to 2007, Dr. Needle was also Co-chair of the Office of Global AIDS Coordinator's ("OGAC") Technical Work Group on Prevention of HIV Among Persons Engaged in High Risk Behaviors. In this position he was responsible for initiating, reviewing and monitoring activities between OGAC and the field related to the prevention of HIV in most-at-risk populations.
Dr. Needle was previously Senior Advisor for Drug and HIV/AIDS at HHS (2000-2001), and before that Chief of the Community Research Branch, Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (1990-1999).
Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation is a non-profit consulting organization that supports in-country and international partners in the development of healthcare infrastructure for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention efforts. With a special focus on resource-poor settings and underserved populations, Pangaea helps its partners, which include national health ministries, NGOs, universities, foundations, and corporations, strengthen HIV/AIDS treatment infrastructure and systems of care and develop new treatment capacity in order to increase access to care. Pangaea also designs and pilots innovative, effective approaches to HIV/AIDS treatment and treatment-based prevention that can be scaled for country-wide application.
Media Contact: Carl Whitaker 510-847-0599