Jorge Saavedra López is general director of the Centro Nacional para la Prevencion y el Control del VIH/SIDA (CENSIDA), an agency of the Mexican Ministry of Health.
Dr Saavedra was born to a Mexican-American mother in the border town of Naco, Sonora. He has two masters degrees from the Harvard School of Public Health; one in public health and the other in health policy management. In 2000 he founded the first Ambulatory Care AIDS Clinic in Mexico City, which was to become Mexico's largest care center for HIV positive people. Two years later he was appointed director of CENSIDA, a government agency that works to prevent HIV transmission, to reduce the impact on individuals, families and society, and to coordinate institutional, inter-institutional, territorial and inter-sectorial responses to AIDS.[1]
As an openly gay, HIV-positive man, Dr Saavedra has campaigned against homophobia and other forms of discrimination.[2] He has also lobbied for increased resources for HIV prevention and AIDS treatment and care in Mexico.[3] He has criticized the U.S. PEPFAR initiative for canceling funding for NGOs working with groups at high risk of HIV infection.[4]