Stone Professor of International Trade Jeffery D. Sachs labeled the African AIDS epidemic a symptom of a larger socioeconomic crisis afflicting the African continent in a speech at the Kennedy School of Government last night.

Kicking off the "AIDS in Africa" series co-sponsored by the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and The Center for International Development (CID), Sachs spoke to a packed Starr Auditorium on AIDS and other diseases affecting third world countries.

He warned that poverty begets poor health conditions, which in turn render economic growth much more difficult in underdeveloped countries.

Sachs, the Director of CID, stressed that without the finances to support proper health institutions, citizens in poor countries will continue to die of easily treatable diseases.

"Measles is a faint memory of a mild childhood disease in the United States," Sachs said. "It takes about a million lives a year in the poor countries."

Sachs' take-home message that Africa could not combat the AIDS epidemic without increased financial aid from "the rich countries" was received favorably by the audience.

"We feel very excited to have advocates like Jeffery Sachs," said Joia S. Mukerjee of the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "More spending for our patients will be a godsend."

Conceding that pharmaceutical companies market AIDS drugs at a cost "vastly above the cost of production," Sachs warned that many are led to believe that simply reducing prices will solve the problem.