Merle Alden Sande (September 2, 1939 – November 4, 2007) was a leading American infectious-diseases expert whose early recognition of the looming public health crisis posed by AIDS led to the development of basic protocols for how to handle infected patients.
Sande was a professor of Internal Medicine from 1971 to 1980 at the University of Virginia, where he performed research in mice on bacterial meningitis therapies such as novel antibiotics and corticosteroids.
Dr Sande was Chief of Medical Services at San Francisco General Hospital in 1981 when he recognized a pattern of gay men being admitted with the rare pneumocystis pneumonia.
Teaming with such experts as Julie Gerberding and Paul Volberding he helped to craft what became known as the San Francisco model of AIDS therapy, a comprehensive, rational approach to care that avoided the fear and paranoia surrounding the disease at that time.
[citation needed] He also helped to found the Infectious Diseases Institute at the Makerere University College of Health Sciences in Kampala, Uganda a major center for HIV education and research in Africa.