Merle Sande

Who was Merle Sande?

Merle Sande 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. He graduated from Washington State University and received his MD degree from the University of Washington, School of Medicine in Seattle.

Sande was a professor of Internal Medicine from 1971–1980 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. His efforts on behalf of these patients resulted in the formation of an AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital and later an AIDS outpatient clinic. 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.