Mumbai: The Aids Society of India (ASI) has mourned the death of pioneering Aids researcher Dr Joep Lange.

Dr Lange was one of the more than 100 HIV and Aids activists, researchers and health workers who died when Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crashed, after being shot down in the Ukraine.

They were all bound for Melbourne, to attend the 20th International Aids Conference (July 20-25), which was to be attended by 14,000 delegates.

“On behalf of the ASI and Indian delegation, we’ll move a condolence resolution to be passed at the opening ceremony of the conference in Melbourne,” ASI president Dr I.S. Gilada said. “We’ll pray for those who lost their lives and for their family and loved ones. We hope the perpetrators will be brought to book sooner than later.”

Admiring the enormous work left by the late researcher, who served as president of the International Aids Society from 2002-2004, Gilada quoted HIV scientist Daniel Kuritzkes as commenting in the Washington Post that Lange was “an extraordinary leader, scientist and humanitarian who fought ceaselessly for the dignity of all HIV-infected persons throughout the world.”

When triple therapy reversed the course of the HIV epidemic, Lange turned his attention to the millions of underserved and untreated people with HIV and rallied support for the triple antiretroviral therapy (ART), said Gilada, as the only way to stop HIV.

“Dr Lange had visited us in India in 2008. The soft-spoken, calm scientist was a thoroughly committed advocate for access to HIV care for all.”

“Dr Lange was to share with us his deep insights in attacking the HIV epidemic from his long-drawn expertise and leading role in work across the world in general but Asia and Africa in particular. His death has left a great void in the HIV caring fraternity globally.”

According to Gilada, Aids research has been affected by previous aviation disasters.

Irving Sigal, a molecular biologist who helped develop the drugs used to treat HIV, died in the explosion of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988.

Then in 1998, the world’s most prominent researcher and human rights activist Dr Jonathan Mann died with his wife Mary Lou Clements-Mann in the crash of Swissair Flight 111 off the coast of Nova Scotia. The only solace is that this time the interval between the two mishaps has widened from 10 years to 16 years.