The Washington Business Journal broke the news late last night that the director of the District Department of Health, Gregg Pane, has chosen Marsha Martin, a longtime HIV/AIDS activist and director of the non-profit organization AIDS Action, to head up the city’s troubled HIV/AIDS Administration (HAA).

Once the appointment is officially announced, Martin would take the helm of an understaffed government bureaucracy which has been accused of failing to adequately address the HIV/AIDS crisis in the District, which is said to affect 1 in 20 residents. D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams, upset over the lack of progress on this issue, fired HAA’s director, Lydia Watts, this week, and promised to establish a taskforce to deal with the health crisis.