Jonathan Mann

Abstract

Abstract This chapter discusses the revolutionary impact of Jonathan Mann on the global response to AIDS. The World Health Organization (WHO) was initially skeptical about the relevance of AIDS to global health. With the growing epidemic, attitudes changed and in 1986 WHO Director General Halfdan Mahler selected Jonathan Mann, director of CDC’s Projet SIDA in Zaire, to lead the organization’s AIDS efforts. Mann’s Global Programme on AIDS (GPA) grew rapidly, and he came to personify the global fight against AIDS. With Mahler’s support Mann bypassed many of WHO’s traditional operating procedures, developing a focus on human rights and health and an emphasis on human solidarity and dignity. Mann clashed with Mahler’s successor Hiroshi Nakajima and resigned in 1990. He moved to Harvard University and founded the François-Xavier Bagnoud (FXB) Center for Health and Human Rights, later pursuing other endeavors. Mann and his wife died in a plane crash in 1998.