2013 Prince Mahidol Award winners announced

Abstract

Progress in the fi ght against HIV/AIDS was recognised by the Prince Mahidol Award Foundation this year, with the award in the field of medicine and the award in the fi eld of public health both going to leading lights from the HIV/AIDS community. The annual award, now in its 21st year, was established by the Government of Thailand in honour of His Royal Highness Prince Mahidol of Songkla. After narrowing down a field of 64 nominees, the board of trustees announced in late November that the award in the fi eld of public health would be shared by World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim, previously the Director of WHO’s HIV/AIDS Department, and Peter Piot, the Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and former Executive Director of UNAIDS. The award in the field of medicine was conferred jointly on the Director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Anthony Fauci, and David Ho, Scientific Director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, Rockefeller University, NYC. “The award refl ects a turning point in the history of HIV/AIDS when the agenda transformed from one of despair to one of opportunity with the advent of anti-retroviral medicines and the mobilization toward access of lifesaving drugs to everyone, no matter their background or economic status”, said Kim, in a statement released by the Washington-based World Bank. But amid the celebratory air, some of the award’s recipients sounded a more cautionary note. “It’s true that much progress has been made in the fi ght against HIV/AIDS”, says Ho, who got into AIDS research after seeing some of the earliest cases in 1980 and 1981. “Back then, I got interested because of a scientific curiosity without ever realising AIDS would turn into a pandemic”, he explains. Ho was one of the pioneers of highly active antiretroviral therapy; one of the key advances that turned a lethal infection into a manageable disease in places where eff ective therapies are available. But recent rhetoric about the coming of an AIDS-free generation may be premature, he says. “Without a cure and without an eff ective vaccine, the epidemic will continue. The world cannot be complacent.”