Joep Lange, a former president of the International AIDS Society, was among those killed in the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down Thursday over eastern Ukraine.
According to the Washington Post the identities of the victims have not been officially confirmed by the airline. But Lange’s office in Amsterdam confirmed in a statement that he died in the crash.
The victims were on their way to the International AIDS Conference that begins this weekend in Melbourne, Australia, a trip halfway around the world that necessitated a change of planes in Kuala Lumpur.
Lange, a Dutch citizen was a pioneer in the field of AIDS research and since the early days of the AIDS epidemic had worked tirelessly, his friends and colleagues said, to improve access to life-saving drugs in impoverished corners of the globe.
“His loss casts a pall over the International AIDS Conference just getting underway in Melbourne,” wrote Daniel R. Kuritzkes, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He called Lange “an extraordinary leader, scientist and humanitarian” who, as a past president of the International AIDS Society and as a leading Dutch academic researcher, “fought ceaselessly for the dignity of all HIV-infected persons throughout the world.”
Also killed were Pim de Kuijer and Martine de Schutter, who worked for organizations, associated with the AIDS Fonds foundation, according to a colleague, Stop AIDS Now Executive Director Louise van Deth.
“It is incomprehensible that they’re no longer here,” van Deth said. “It is a heavy blow that people who have been so active for so long in the fight against AIDS have been wiped out.”
She said Lange’s death was a particular loss, noting that he was the driving force behind the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development.
