For an expert from Iran, reasons to worry about AIDS

An emerging epidemic of HIV/AIDS in Iran could have disastrous consequences for the country and the region, according to Kaveh Khoshnood, M.P.H. ’89, Ph.D. ’95, assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health and a native of Iran. Although 70 percent of Iran’s 20,000 AIDS cases are drug users, according to UNAIDS, the government only recently lifted a ban on drug treatment centers, Khoshnood told congressional staffers in Washington on October 15. The briefing was organized by the American Iranian Council. “This shift in government policy created an opening for the Iranian medical and public health community to become engaged in a national debate regarding alternative approaches to drug addiction and the HIV/AIDS epidemic,” said Khoshnood, who along with Yale colleagues has brought Iranian physicians to Yale to study science-based models for treatment of opiate addiction and prevention of HIV infection.