The District’s new HIV/AIDS czar said Thursday the nation’s capital has a “severe problem” facing it, but by setting high expectations and “thinking big” there’s no reason the city should not be successful tackling its highest-in-the-nation AIDS rate.
Dr. Shannon Hader, a public health doctor with years of experience battling HIV on a national and international scale, was chosen to lead the District’s HIV/AIDS Administration, a division of the D.C. Department of Health. She is the administration’s third chief in less than three years.
Hader was most recently on detail from the Centers for Disease Control to the Department of State as a senior scientific adviser.
“There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be leading the nation in providing a comprehensive, modern response to a complex HIV epidemic,” Hader said during an event at the Congress Heights Health Center.
Hader recently completed a three-year tour as director of the CDC’s AIDS efforts in Zimbabwe. Her work has taken her from rural Mississippi to Russia, China and Jamaica.
DOH DirectorGregg Pane took over as HAA administrator in January, after Mayor Adrian Fenty declined to reappoint former AIDS chief Marsha Martin. Since then, Fenty said, the District has moved to improve its HIV service capacity east of the Anacostia River, held a citywide AIDS summit, coordinated providers to implement routine testing and transferred thousands of HIV case files to computer.
“She brings a worldwide perspective on this,” Fenty said of Hader. “She brings a plethora of great ideas and a ton of energy and there’s nothing but hope and optimism for the HIV/AIDS administration right now.”
