Faculty, staff and patients at The Johns Hopkins Hospital will mark World AIDS Day with several events designed to highlight the need for continued community leadership in Baltimore to deal with the city’s soaring HIV rate. More than 16,000 Baltimoreans are infected with HIV, earning the city the dubious distinction of having the nation’s second highest rate of infection.

World AIDS Day begins with a morning symposium lecture, led by the Hopkins Hospital’s pastoral care team that focuses on local programs and services for people with HIV disease. Titled “Caring for the City of HIV, a Call to Action,” the symposium will address topics ranging from children as patients, to substance abuse, to spirituality and palliative care, to the growing number of women who are infected.

At mid-day, a multifaith worship service will be held, followed by an afternoon remembrance ceremony to celebrate lives lived and the power to heal. Ministers in pastoral care and staff from the Johns Hopkins Moore Clinic, where the hospital’s HIV care services are based, will light dozens of candles to signify their renewed commitment to preventing and treating HIV disease, which now infects 33 million people worldwide, including at least 1 million in the United States and 23,000 in the state of Maryland.

WHO:
Dorcas Baker, R.N., M.A., a regional director for AIDS education and training
Colin Flynn, AIDS Administration Center for Surveillance and Epidemiology
Armina Chaudry, M.D., Johns Hopkins Moore Clinic
Rev. Debra Hickman, M.Div., a member of the Baltimore Mayor’s HIV Commission
Nancy Hutton, M.D., a Johns Hopkins pediatrician
Bob Bollinger, M.D., M.P.H., an expert in the global impact of HIV/AIDS
Anton Pridget, a child with HIV
Marilyn N. Burnett, an HIV-positive woman
Rev. William Drayton, M.Div., pastoral care team, The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Rev. Joanne Bedford, M.Div., pastoral care team, The Johns Hopkins Hospital
Rev. Uwe C. Scharf, Ph.D., director of pastoral care at The Johns Hopkins Hospital

WHEN:
All activities will be held Monday, Dec. 1, 2008
9 a.m., symposium lecture titled “Caring for the City of HIV, A Call to Action” noon, World AIDS Day Worship Service
2 p.m., Remembrance Celebration

WHERE:
Turner Auditorium
The Johns Hopkins University’s East Baltimore Medical Campus
Media can park on Rutland Avenue, near the intersection with East Monument Street
Baltimore, Md.