“South African epidemiologist and University of KwaZulu-Natal Professor Salim Adbool Karim has been named the chair of the newly established UNAIDS Scientific Expert Panel,” Times Live reports (Child, 6/4). “The panel which he will head up is tasked with providing strategic advice on the relevance of new research and findings and how they can be rapidly implemented to prevent new HIV infections and improve the lives of people living with HIV,” the U.N. News Centre notes, adding, “The other members will be announced in the coming weeks” (6/3). The panel also will advise UNAIDS on “gaps and strategic needs in AIDS research and on how UNAIDS can adjust its policies to address these needs and shape the AIDS response,” according to an UNAIDS press release. “As part of its new mandate the panel will convene international scientific consultations on behalf of UNAIDS, the first of which is already underway in Durban, South Africa,” the press release states, noting this first meeting is titled, “Scientific advances from the ‘Mississippi baby‘: Implications for public health programs on mother to child transmission of HIV” (6/3).