News Release

November 30, 2006
Contact: Patricia M. Hansen, Director of Communication/Public Affairs
732-235-6307
hansenmp@umdnj.edu

UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School
Observes 25th Anniversary of AIDS on World AIDS Day
-- Free Rapid HIV Testing Available --

New Brunswick—UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School (RJWMS) will commemorate the 25th anniversary of the first reported cases of HIV/AIDS as part of World AIDS Day on Friday, December 1. The theme will be "Stop AIDS. Keep the Promise."

Observed internationally, World AIDS Day was established in 1988 and is held annually on December 1 to highlight HIV/AIDS, increase awareness ofthe epidemic and fight prejudice. Observance of this day provides an opportunity for government, health care and community leaders to demonstrate the importance of the fight against HIV/AIDS.

World AIDS Day at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School will begin at 10 a.m. in the Arline and Henry Schwartzman Courtyard at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. The morning will feature consumer and pastoral care discussion panels, following which guests may visit information booths to obtain literature and speak with providers and health experts. A special observance ceremony will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., followed by featured speakers Steven J. Levin, MD, associate professor of family medicine and the American Academy of
Family Physicians' 2007 Family Physician of the Year and Mona Mahal, MD, clinical associate professor of medicine, who specializes in allergy,immunology and infectious diseases.

Free Rapid HIV testing will be offered throughout the day. Trained counselors will be available to discuss the confidential test results, which are provided in 20 minutes. Free Rapid HIV testing and counseling also are available on an ongoing basis at the Eric B. Chandler Health Center and the RWJMS counseling and testing site located in Suite I of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, which are among 106 grant-funded sites in the State of New Jersey offering confidential, free HIV services. For more information and appointments, click here or
call: 1 (866) HIV-CHECK.

The event is jointly sponsored by UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, its Eric B. Chandler Health Center, the Robert Wood Johnson AIDS program, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the Middlesex County Dept. of Human Services HIV Health Services Planning Council serving Middlesex, Somerset and Hunterdon counties and the New Brunswick Development Corp. Free parking and refreshments will be provided.

UMDNJ is the nation's largest free-standing public health sciences university with more than 5,500 students attending the state's three medical schools, its only dental school, a graduate school of biomedical sciences, a school of health related professions, a school of nursing and its only school of public health, on five campuses. Last year, there were more than two million patient visits to UMDNJ facilities and faculty at campuses in Newark, New Brunswick/Piscataway, Scotch Plains, Camden and Stratford. UMDNJ operates University Hospital, a Level I Trauma Center in Newark, and University Behavioral HealthCare, a mental health and addiction services network.