Gebruiker:Haaftjlv/DeboraBirx

Deborah Leah Birx, (born April 4, 1956) is een American physician and diplomat who serves as the response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force as of March 2020.[1]

Birx has served as Ambassador-at-Large and United States Global AIDS Coordinator since 2014, responsible for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) program in 65 countries supporting HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs.[2]

Early life and education

Deborah Birx was born in Pennsylvania and is the daughter of Donald Birx, a mathematician and electrical engineer, and Adele Sparks Birx, a nursing instructor.[3][4][5]

She attended Lampeter-Strasburg High School and graduated from Carlisle High School in Pennsylvania in the early 1970s.[6]

She majored in chemistry at Houghton College in 1976 and then earned her medical degree from the Hershey School of Medicine at Pennsylvania State University.[3] In 1980 she began in internal medicine and basic and clinical immunology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the National Institutes of Health.[7]

Carrier

Birx with Vice President Mike Pence in March 2020 Birx served as a physician in the United States Army, rising to the rank of colonel[6] before she retired from military service. She started her career with the United States Department of Defense as a clinician in immunology, focusing on HIV/AIDS vaccine research.[7] She then served in the Department of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center from 1985 to 1989, authoring an article on the defective regulation of Epstein–Barr virus infection in patients with HIV/AIDS and related disorders that The New England Journal of Medicine published in 1986 and that Robert R. Redfield of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (presently the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)) co-authored.[8] In 1996, she became the Director of the United States Military HIV Research Program at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, a role she held until 2005.[7]

From 2005 to 2014, Birx served as the director of CDC's Division of Global HIV/AIDS (DGHA), which is part of the agency's Center for Global Health.[9]

Birx was nominated by President Barack Obama as United States Global AIDS Coordinator and confirmed by the Senate; she was sworn in April 4, 2014.[10] She described her role as ambassador to help meet the HIV prevention and treatment targets set by Obama in 2015 to end the AIDS epidemic by 2030.[11]

On February 27, 2020, Vice President Mike Pence named Ambassador Birx as response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force.[1]

Andere activiteiten

Birx serves as a Member of the Board for Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as of March 2020.[12]

Selected honors and awards Birx has been awarded with:

Two U.S. Meritorious Service Medals[7] Legion of Merit Award for her research, leadership and management during her tenure at the Department of Defense[7]