YOUTUBE, INTERNATIONAL AIDS SOCIETYJoep Lange, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Amsterdam and former president of the International AIDS Society, died yesterday (July 17) on Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17, which was shot down over Ukraine. He was 59. Also on board was Lange’s partner, Jacqueline van Tongeren, director of communications at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development. Both were en route to the upcoming AIDS 2014 conference being held in Melbourne, Australia. In total, 298 people were killed in the MH17 crash, including other researchers travelling to the meeting.
“We wish to express our deepest sympathy with Joep’s children and with Joep’s and Jacqueline’s families, friends, and close colleagues,” the University of Amersterdam said in its initial statement following the crash.
“Joep had an absolute commitment to HIV treatment and care in Asia and Africa,” the University of New South Wales’s David Cooper, who worked with Lange, said in a statement. “The joy in collaborating with Joep was that he would always bring a fresh view, a unique take on things, and he never accepted that something was impossible to achieve.”
Born Joseph Marie Albert (“Joep”) in Nieuwenhagen, the Netherlands, in 1954, Lange studied medicine at the University of Amsterdam, earning an MD in 1981 and a PhD in 1987. He dedicated much of ...
