Two Cornell students and several Weill Cornell faculty members and staff who are stationed at and working with the WCMC-affiliated GHESKIO clinic in the earthquake-ravaged city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, "are certainly in our thoughts and our prayers and we're staying in close touch with them," said Dr. Antonio M. Gotto Jr., dean of Weill Cornell Medical College and provost for medical affairs.

"We're very anxious; as soon as things settle down, [we will want] to get them back in business and either rebuild or repair the damage that's been done to their facility there," Gotto said. "But our immediate concern is for their health and safety and well-being. We will be in a position to be able to evacuate the students, we hope, very soon."

The GHESKIO clinic, directed by Dr. Jean Pape, a 1975 graduate of Weill Cornell Medical College and professor of medicine at WCMC, is dedicated to research, services and training in HIV/AIDS and other deadly infectious diseases. GHESKIO was the source of the first scientific study of AIDS in Haiti, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1983.

Less than a year ago, GHESKIO opened the Warren D. Johnson Jr. Medical Center just north of Port-au-Prince. Both clinics were reportedly heavily damaged in the Jan. 12 earthquake.

"We're trying to determine exactly what it is they most need," Gotto said of the students. "We know they need a lot of things, but how we can best help them. Right now it's a matter of trying to assess the situation. We also have the international SOS group that's trying to get to them."

Gotto also said there are about 100 Haitians who work at Weill Cornell in New York City; services and support are being offered to them.

"Whatever we can do to help them, we're doing that," he said.