Unconfirmed reports are claiming that “more than 100” AIDS researchers and staff en route to the International AIDS Conference in Australia are among the nearly 300 killed onboard Malaysia Flight MH17.
Most major news organizations are repeating the claim that “more than 100” or “108” AIDS researchers, staff, NGO members, or other attendees headed to the 20th annual International AIDS Conference in Melbourne were killed when a Russian surface-to-air missile shot Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 out of the sky.
Australia’s ABC News was one of the first to make the claim, quoting the president of the International AIDS Society (IAS).
About 100 of the 298 people killed on the downed Malaysia Airlines jet were heading to the AIDS 2014 conference in Melbourne, including researchers, health workers, activists and people living with HIV.
IAS president and Nobel laureate Francoise Barre-Sinousi has told the National Press Club in Canberra the loss of life is difficult to comprehend.
“We are all with our phones waiting for confirmation and hoping that it cannot be confirmed,” she said.
Next of kin are still being informed, but Dutch HIV researcher and former IAS president Dr Joep Lange and his wife and collaborator Jacqueline van Tongeren are among those killed.Â
The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
About 100 of the 298 people killed in the Malaysia Airlines crash were heading to Melbourne for a major AIDS conference, conference attendees have been told.
Delegates at a pre-conference in Sydney were told on Friday morning that about 100 medical researchers, health workers and activists were on the plane that went down near the Russia-Ukraine border, including former International AIDS Society president Joep Lange.
And The Australian reported:
MORE than 100 AIDS activists, researchers and health workers bound for a major conference in Melbourne were on the Malaysia Airlines flight downed in the Ukraine.
It is believed that delegates to the 20th International AIDS Conference, due to begin on Sunday, will be informed today that 108 of their colleagues and family members died on MH17.
If these extreme numbers are true, it is a devastation beyond comprehension and an immeasurable loss to science and the world.
“There’s been confirmed a number of senior people who were coming out here who were researchers, who were medical scientists, doctors, people who’ve been to the forefront of dealing with AIDS across the world,” Victoria Premier Denis Napthine told reporters in Melbourne on Friday, according to Haaretz. “The exact number is not yet known, but there is no doubt it’s a substantial number.”
Among those believed dead from the MH17 crash are veteran AIDS researcher and former IAS president Dr. Joep Lange, World Health Organization (WHO) media adviser Glenn Thomas, and Netherlands AIDS activist Pim de Kuijer.
Austraia’s The Age reports that expected to attend the International AIDS Conference are “about 14,000 people from more than 200 countries, including Nobel laureates, leading scientists, government officials and people living with HIV…to assess how far the world has come in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and to seek consensus on what more needs to be done.”
On Twitter, the hashtag #AIDS2014 has become filled with updates and messages of condolence.
For a selection of tweets and additional details, read our initial report:Â Breaking: Top Researchers Traveling To International AIDS Conference Killed In Malaysian Crash
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Image by Guy Stayner via Twitter