A shrill cry pierced the air of a hospital room in Zambia as a young woman fell to her knees, clutching a limp bundle wrapped in a white sheet.
Stephen Lewis turned around to see the woman collapsing into a doctor's arms, and his mind flashed back to the room he visited earlier, where dozens of infants lay crying.
Lewis, co-director of AIDS-Free World, spoke to an audience of about 60 in UF's Pugh Hall Thursday night about the role universities play in making medicine available to AIDS-affected countries.
At that hospital in Zambia, Lewis heard the same cry reverberating through the halls every 20 minutes as mother after mother mourned a daughter or son lost to AIDS.
This is one of the images that Lewis, 70, brushes his teeth to at night and sips his coffee to in the morning.
This is the reason why Lewis, former U.N. special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, has devoted his life to fighting the AIDS pandemic.
"I don't know how to convey this to you, but there are monumental lives at stake, and these drugs are everything to people in the developing world," Lewis said.
Hosted by UF's chapter of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, Lewis agreed to come to UF to support the organization's push for humanitarian licensing of new drugs and technology developed by the university.
By participating in systematic humanitarian licensing, UF would be giving affordable generic brands the rights to use drugs in countries where needed, instead of giving those rights to powerhouse pharmaceutical companies.
In Africa, more than 14 million women are infected with HIV, and about 500,000 children have the infection, Lewis said. Before those children celebrate their fifth birthday, about 400,000 of them are dead. The numbers could be reduced if Africans had access to affordable medicine, he said.
Lewis pointed out that while Africa has a rampant AIDS pandemic, it represents only 3 percent of sales for the pharmaceutical market. Name-brand drugs are unaffordable for most Africans, and the big pharmaceutical companies are more concerned with profit than with providing drugs where they're most needed, Lewis said.
In an interview before the discussion, Lewis said that he agrees with studies showing that today's youth are more civic-minded and socially responsible.
"There's a tremendous renaissance of interest and engagement among young people," he said.
For this reason, Lewis never gives up an invitation to speak at a university, even if it means flying from Canada to Gainesville.
Jon Arp, a fourth-year finance student, was moved by Lewis's discussion on AIDS and the descriptive details that made the problem concrete for him.
"He was probably one of the most engaging public speakers I've ever heard," Arp said. "And, his points can't be disputed."
UF student Gloria Tavera, a member of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines, feels that UF has an obligation to use its patents and technology to make drugs available to HIV patients.
"It is our conviction that universities, and specifically UF as a large research institution, can do more to increase global access to the essential medicines we develop through generic licensing to developing nations," Tavera said.
