Michel D. Kazatchkine
GET UPDATES FROM Michel D. Kazatchkine
 
Professor Michel D. Kazatchkine has spent the past 25 years fighting AIDS as a leading physician, researcher, administrator, advocate, policy maker, and diplomat.

Dr. Kazatchkine attended medical school at Necker-Enfants-Malades in Paris, studied immunology at the Pasteur Institute, and has completed postdoctoral fellowships at St Mary's hospital in London and Harvard Medical School.

His involvement with HIV began in 1983, when, as a young clinical immunologist, he treated a French couple who had returned from Africa with unexplained fever and severe immune deficiency. By 1985, he had started a clinic in Paris specializing in AIDS, which now treats over 1,600 people. Three years later, he opened the first night clinic for people with HIV in Paris, making it possible for them to obtain confidential health care outside working hours.

Dr. Kazatchkine was Professor of Immunology at Université René Descartes and Head of the Immunology Unit of the Georges Pompidou Hospital in Paris. He has authored or co-authored of over 500 articles in peer reviewed journals, focusing on auto-immunity, immuno-intervention and pathogenesis of HIV/AIDS.

In addition to his clinical teaching and research activities, Dr. Kazatchkine has played key roles in various organizations, including Director of the National Agency for Research on AIDS (ANRS) in France (1998-2005), Chair of the World Health Organization's Strategic and Technical Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS (2004-2007), member of the WHO's Scientific and Technical Advisory Group on tuberculosis (2004-2007), and French Ambassador on HIV/AIDS and communicable diseases (2005-2007).

Dr. Kazatchkine's involvement with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria began when the organization was initially established. He was the first Chair of the Technical Review Panel of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (2002-2005), and also served as a Board member and Vice-Chair of the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (2005-2006).

In February, 2007, he was elected Executive Director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and took office in Geneva in April, 2007. While recognizing the enormous challenges of tackling HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria globally, Dr. Kazatchkine believes that the progress made in recent years -- particularly through programs supported by the Global Fund -- presents enormous opportunities: "The mission and mandate of the Global Fund developed seven years ago were visionary and aspirational. In 2008, we are closer than ever to making that vision a reality, and the Fund's objective of making a sustainable and significant contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals is actually being accomplished. The unprecedented mobilization for the health of the poor in the past few years is producing results -- results which can be measured in terms of lives saved."

Blog Entries by Michel D. Kazatchkine

No Funding, No AIDS Free Generation

Posted December 1, 2011 | 13:44:23 (EST)

In a modern, globalized world, the country in which you live or the income you earn should not determine whether or not your child will become HIV positive. And yet in my country, France, only three babies were infected last year with HIV during their mothers' pregnancy, labor, delivery, or...

Read Post

The Power of a Letter

Posted September 27, 2011 | 11:44:43 (EST)

It is an incredibly rewarding feeling to see the work to which you've dedicated your life being championed by others. For that, I would like to offer my most sincere thanks to Morgan Freeman, Annie Lennox, Deepak Chopra, Jeremy Irons, Djimon Hounsou and the many other inspiring individuals who have...

Read Post

Makings AIDS History

Posted July 28, 2011 | 16:32:29 (EST)

"Making AIDS history," this year's Capitol Hill conference organized by amfAR the Foundation for AIDS research, is of particular significance as the world marks the 30th anniversary of AIDS but also amfAR's 25th anniversary.

As we look back on what we have accomplished in this fight over the last...

Read Post

Partnerships That Save Lives

Posted July 2, 2011 | 14:06:51 (EST)

Anyone who despairs at the sheer scale of the challenge that AIDS represents should hear the story of Jacqueline, a 21-year-old Brazilian mother who I met this week in Sao Paulo during a Global Fund conference. She was born HIV-positive and grew up destitute, but was put on treatment as...

Read Post

The 30-Year Fight Against AIDS and for Patient Rights

Posted June 9, 2011 | 15:54:57 (EST)

Today the international community is gathered in New York to assess progress in combating AIDS, ten years after the historic United Nations General Assembly Special sessions that led to the creation of the Global Fund. It is important to reflect on the progress we have made since AIDS was first...

Read Post

Transparency Saves Lives

Posted June 6, 2011 | 18:20:24 (EST)

This week, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria released its investigation report on some of our grants in Mali. It is truly sobering to read how a few individuals, who were tasked with managing two malaria and two tuberculosis programs that should save the lives of thousands...

Read Post

Cheaper Drugs are Spearheading the Fight Against Malaria

Posted May 3, 2011 | 13:54:05 (EST)

By Michel Kazatchkine and Philippe Douste-Blazy

When the daughter of Hajia Aisha, a young jobless mother in Nigeria, fell ill with malaria earlier this year, Hajia saved her life by rushing out to a shop and buying state of the art medication for the equivalent of just 25 U.S....

Read Post

The Global Fund Won't Stand for Any Corruption

Posted January 24, 2011 | 16:20:49 (EST)

On a recent visit to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, I was deeply struck by the words of a 15-year-old I met called Olivier who is living with HIV and receiving treatment with the help of the Global Fund.

He looked at me intensely, his eyes burning with new-found hope, and...

Read Post

Controlling AIDS in Our Time

Posted December 1, 2010 | 11:05:00 (EST)

As we approach the 30th anniversary of the first report of AIDS in the United States, well over five million -- more than half of all people in urgent need of AIDS treatment in the developing world -- are now receiving anti-retroviral therapy, a life-saving medication which only five years...
Read Post

Invest in the Global Fund, Invest in Better Health

Posted September 17, 2010 | 12:22:09 (EST)

We are at a defining moment in the struggle against AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria -- killers that claim 5 million lives each year. To date, the world has made dramatic advances in the fight against these global threats, but what we choose to do this year could mean the difference...

Read Post

The Global Fund Seeks Additional Grants from the G8 in Hopes of Helping Millions More

Posted July 9, 2009 | 17:19:48 (EST)

GENEVA -- World leaders meeting at a G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, in 2001 launched one of the most ambitious health initiatives in modern history when they announced the creation of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Eight years on, G8 leaders gathering in another Italian town,...

Read Post

The Impact of the Financial Crisis on the Developing World

Posted January 29, 2009 | 10:36:40 (EST)

DAVOS -- Gazing at the faces of contrite bankers and somewhat shell-shocked politicians who are in Davos trying to figure out how to right a capsized global economy, I wish to remind them that if the world's rich think they have never had it so bad, the developing world is...

Read Post

Staggering Gains in the Fight Against AIDS

Posted December 4, 2008 | 09:20:42 (EST)

As I reflect on World AIDS Day, I am struck by the great achievements made in global health in just the past six years. In financial terms, the change has been staggering. AIDS spending went from about $600 million in 2000 to $10 billion last year. Tuberculosis spending was $800...

Read Post