Biographical Note
SG/A/829
AIDS/51
BIO/3475
5 February 2003
Secretary-General Appoints George Alleyne Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Caribbean Region
NEW YORK, 4 February (UN Headquarters) -- The Secretary-General has appointed Dr. George Alleyne of Barbados as his Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean region.
Dr. Alleyne will be responsible for ensuring follow-up to the United Nations General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS and the Pan-Caribbean Partnership against HIV/AIDS, in the Caribbean region. In these efforts, Dr. Alleyne will work closely with Caribbean leaders, with the United Nations team and resident coordinator in each country he visits, and with Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), as well as Edwin Carrington, Secretary-General of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM). He will also, on occasion, represent the Secretary-General at events related to HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean region.
Dr. Alleyne, M.D., F.R.C.P., F.A.C.P. (Hon), DSc (Hon), became Director of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO), on 1 February 1995 and completed a second four-year term on 31 January 2003. In 2002, he was elected Director Emeritus.
Dr. Alleyne was born in St. Philip, Barbados, on 7 October 1932. He is married to Sylvan I. Chen and they have three children. After graduation in medicine from the University of the West Indies (UWI) as the gold medallist in 1957, he completed his postgraduate training in internal medicine in the United Kingdom and did further postgraduate work in that country and in the United States.
He entered academic medicine at the UWI in 1962, and his career included research at the Tropical Metabolism Research Unit for his doctorate in medicine. He was appointed Professor of Medicine at the UWI in 1972, and four years later became Chairman of the Department of Medicine. He is an emeritus professor of the UWI.
In 1981, he left the UWI to assume the position of Chief of the Unit of Research, Promotion and Coordination in the Division of Human Resources and Research at PAHO/WHO. In 1983, he was appointed Director of the Area of Health Programs, and in 1990, he was appointed Assistant Director of PAHO/WHO.
Dr. Alleyne has 144 publications in scientific journals, and during his term as Director has given numerous speeches and presentations in which he has dealt with issues such as equity in health, health and development, and the basis for international cooperation in health. He has also addressed several aspects of Caribbean health and the problems it faces.
Dr. Alleyne has received numerous awards in recognition of his work, including prestigious decorations and national honours from many countries of the Americas. In 1990, he was made Knight Bachelor by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II for his services to medicine. In 2001, he was awarded the Order of the Caribbean Community, the highest honour that can be conferred on a Caribbean national.
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