PROFESSOR BRENDAN BAIN  

Professor of Community Health,
University of the West Indies 

Brendan Bain is Professor of Community Health at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Coordinator of the UWI HIV/AIDS Response Programme (UWI HARP) and Director of the Regional Coordinating Unit of the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training Network (CHART). He is trained in internal medicine, clinical infectious diseases, and public health. He has worked as a Consultant Physician at the University Hospital of the West Indies for 25 years and has been a leader in AIDS care and treatment in Jamaica. He is an advisor on HIV/AIDS to the Jamaican Ministry of Health and the Association of Commonwealth Universities. Dr Bain has been a pioneer Clinical Infectious Diseases Lecturer and Attending Physician at the University of the West Indies (UWI) and the University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI), Mona, Jamaica since 1980. He is a former Wellcome Trust Research Fellow in Infectious Diseases and was part of a team of doctors who reported the first case of AIDS to be recognized in Jamaica in 1983. He is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of International Health of the Boston University School of Public Health.

Dr Bain has served as an advisor on pharmaceuticals and infectious diseases to the Jamaican Ministry of Health since 1980. He is an active member of the Pan-Caribbean Partnership against AIDS (PANCAP) and sat on its first Board. He is an inaugural member of the Trans-Caribbean HIV/AIDS Research Initiative (TCHARI), established in 2006 with support from the US National Institutes of Health. In 1989-1990, Dr Bain was appointed by the Jamaican Ministry of Health as the first National HIV/AIDS Staff Trainer for hospital and laboratory personnel. In that capacity, he designed and led a series of on-site workshops and seminars for all categories of staff in the 21 public hospitals of Jamaica and their associated microbiology and pathology laboratories. In the 1990s, he led the first national educational workshops on HIV/AIDS for healthcare personnel in Belize and the Cayman Islands. In August 1999, he started an out-patient clinic for persons living with HIV/AIDS at UHWI and has inspired the commencement of a similar clinic at the Kingston Public Hospital.

Dr Bain’s research interests are: reinforcement of safe sexual practices in the context of HIV/AIDS/STI prevention; the development of reliable, low-cost methods of diagnosing and monitoring HIV disease progression; and the emotional and psychological impact of HIV infection on patients and healthcare workers. He is co-author of the book, Education and HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean (UNESCO and Ian Randle Publications, 2005). He has also received an award from the Medical Association of Jamaica “for distinguished service in Medicine”.

 

DR MARTIN O’FLAHERTY
MD PhD

 University of Liverpool 

 Martin O'Flaherty is a physician interested in cardiovascular epidemiology and in using a modelling approach to inform the decision making process in healthcare. He is a researcher in several projects aimed to refine, extend and improve the usability of the IMPACT Coronary Heart Disease Policy model, led by Professor Simon Capewell in Liverpool. Currently the model has been implemented in several countries, and recently in Canada, Spain, Poland, Tunisia, Palestine, Syria and Turkey.

He is also working in describing and understanding current trends in CVD mortality globally. His research interests are the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease, epidemiological modelling and research synthesis.