Pandemics in Global Perspective: From HIV/AIDS to COVID-19

The objective of this course is to examine key epidemiological methods used for studying and preventing global pandemics. Focusing on two pandemics that played out on different time scales, HIV/AIDS and COVID-19, students will use these two examples of pandemics to better understand the natural history, distribution, pathogenesis, transmission and prevention of infectious diseases globally. We will pay particular attention to issues of disease measurement and the complexities of gathering and interpreting data during an ongoing crisis. We will explore the transmission events that fueled the pandemics under consideration; the social, political and disease dynamics that exacerbated the spread of these infections; efforts to stem their flow, from non-pharmaceutical interventions like social distancing (and the HIV equivalent of limiting the number of sex or needle-sharing partners) to biomedical interventions including therapeutics and vaccines.