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Twinning Center Partner Dies in Kenya Airways Crash in Cameroon


For more information please contact:
Amanda J. Gibbons
Director, HIV/AIDS Twinning Center
AIHA/Washington, DC
Tel. 202.789.1136
agibbons@aiha.com
 
International Health and Development Community Mourns the Death of American Public Health Specialist Dr. Albert E. Henn

WASHINGTON, DC, May 9, 2007—The American International Health Alliance (AIHA) is deeply saddened to announce the loss of one of our partners in the May 5 crash of Kenya Airways flight 507 bound for Nairobi. Dr. Albert E. Henn, 70, director of Liverpool VCT, Care & Treatment, was returning to his home in Kenya following a site assessment visit to Cote d’Ivoire when the plane carrying him and 113 other passengers and crew crashed soon after taking off from a scheduled stop in Douala, Cameroon.

The wreckage of the plane was found Sunday in a dense mangrove swamp some 10 kilometers southeast of the Douala airport along the planned flight path. The cause of the crash is still under investigation. There were no survivors.

Dr. Henn recently began working with AIHA’s HIV/AIDS Twinning Center through a PEPFAR-funded partnership designed to link Liverpool VCT, Care & Treatment—a Kenyan NGO that provides training and technical assistance in voluntary counseling and testing, as well as other aspects of HIV/AIDS-related treatment, care, and support—with organizations needing assistance in Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, and Ethiopia. A pioneer of the south-to-south model of building organizational and human resource capacity in developing nations, Henn had been in Cote d’Ivoire to evaluate potential partner sites in that country.

“No words can express the depth of our sadness at the loss of Dr. Henn. Our partnership with Liverpool VCT had just been launched and this was his first trip for us,” says AIHA Executive Director James P. Smith. “He was a consummate professional with a long, distinguished career that serves as a testament to his dedication to global public health and we had been looking forward to a fruitful collaboration. We mourn his passing and extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, friends, and the many people whose lives he touched.”

In a career that spanned more than 40 years, Dr. Henn devoted much of his time to helping African countries achieve sustainable reforms in their population and health sectors. With a clinical background in family planning and reproductive health, as well as preventive medicine and public health, he worked in some 30 African nations, residing in Kenya and various other countries on the continent for nearly two decades. Dr. Henn was a senior manager for USAID for more than 10 years, spearheading the design of the agency’s malaria and oral rehydration therapy programs. Dr. Henn served as Health Program Director at the Harvard Institute for International Development from 1983-90 before assuming the position of executive director at AMREF-Kenya, the largest health sector NGO in Africa. There, he helped make AMREF a model of south-to-south technical assistance. More recently, he directed EngenderHealth’s AMKENI Project, a USAID-funded family planning and reproductive health program in Kenya, before becoming director of Liverpool VCT. Dr. Henn received his MD from Wayne State University’s School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, and his MPH from Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

 
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