Bulletin Summer 1989

International Conference on AIDS The University hosted an international seminar on ‘AIDS in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Region: Strategies for Prevention and Control - the Role o f Institutions of Higher Learning' from 28th to 30t h June, 1989. The function was co-sponsored by the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning (ASAIHL), of which the University is a founding member. This was the third time the University had played host to an academic gathering of the ASAIHL. The first international conference on AIDS in Hong Kong, the seminar was attended by over seventy guests and delegates from Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Ma l ays i a, the Ph i l i pp i nes, Singapore, Thailand, the United States and Hong Kong. The seminar aimed to examine issues related to the incidence, control and prevention of AIDS in Southeast Asian countries and to explore strategies for sectoral, national and international cooperation. Local and foreign experts on the subject were invited to give plenary speeches while ASA IH L member countries gave reports on the prevalence and control of AIDS in their own countries. Other participants presented papers covering the medical, educational, social and ethical-legal aspects of the AIDS issue. Mr. Nigel Shipman, JP, acting secretary for health and welfare of the government, officiated at the opening ceremony on 28th June. Professor Baysung Hsu, acting vice-chancellor of the University, gave a welcoming speech. Dr. lam Chaya-Ngam, president o f ASA IHL made a special trip from Bangkok to address the gathering. Professor M. Essex from the Harvard AIDS Institute and Harvard School of Public Health delivered the keynote speech. Speakers at plenary sessions included Professor R. Detels, School of Public Health, University of California at Los Angeles; Professor Zeng Yi, Institute of Virology, Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine; Dr. E.K. Yeoh and Dr. Patrick C.K. Li of the AIDS Counselling and Health Education Service of the Hong Kong Government; Dr. H. Dyer, senior medical adviser of Burroughs Wellcome & Co. (HK ) Ltd.; and Dr. Yeung Hin-wing, director of the Chinese Medicinal Material Research Centre, CUHK. Discussions on various aspects of AIDS were held on 29th June. Topic s included medical aspects The opening ceremony of the ASAIHL Seminar on AIDS Professor Joseph C.K. Lee (right) and Dr. Yeung Hin-wing (left) at a seminar session and professional education, risk factors and behavioural studies, ethical-legal aspects and the roles and effects of public education and the media, and the role of tertiary institutions and international cooperation. A round table discussion on 'prospects of regional collaboration on the prevention and control of AIDS' was held on the last day of the seminar, and delegates as well as representatives from the Hong Kong Government took part to discuss the possibilit y of setting up a regional information centre on AIDS in Hong Kong. The chairman of the programme committee of the seminar was Professor Joseph C.K. Lee, dean of the Faculty of Medicine of the University; and Professor John Espy, associate director of the University's Office of Industrial and Business Development, served as the chairman of the organizing committee. During the three-day seminar, an exhibition on 'Understanding AIDS' was staged at the New Town Plaza in Shatin to promote public awareness o f the nature of the disease and ways to combat it. The exhibition was jointly organized by the University, the Central Health Educatio n Unit, and the A I D S Counselling and Health Education Service of the Department of Health. 13