Faculty from the UNC School of Medicine and Eshelman School of Pharmacy pledge to continue keeping North Carolinians living with HIV healthy in a new video produced by the UNC Center for AIDS Research or CFAR.

“We want to make sure everyone living with HIV feels like a worthwhile citizen of North Carolina,” says Claire Farel, MD, MPH, Medical Director of UNC’s Infectious Diseases Clinic and Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at the UNC School of Medicine.

This means improving access to clinical care and treatment. David Rosen, MD, PhD, MSPH, Research Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, talks about how individual and public health are interconnected.

“We want people living with HIV as healthy as possible not only for their own health, but because it also reduces the likelihood of transmission to others,” Rosen says.

In addition to clinical care, the group reflects on UNC’s commitment to researching better treatment and prevention options.

“Is there a drug out there that could prevent HIV and be taken only once a week rather than every single day?” asks MacKenzie Cottrell, PharmD, Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Pharmacotherapy and Experimental Therapeutics in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy.

The purpose of the UNC CFAR is to provide infrastructure to support investigation of the HIV/AIDS epidemic using clinical research, behavioral research, research into HIV biology and pathogenesis at the molecular level, and educational outreach. A special thanks to Bruce Curran and Jeff Raskin for producing this video.

Report by Morag MacLachlan