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Unique Partnership Shows Way To Conquer HIV/AIDS

[ Posted On: 2006-11-18 ]

The numbers don't tell the real story.

At Indiana University's partnership with Moi University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, we now treat more than 33,000 HIV-positive patients at 18 sites throughout western Kenya.

We feed 30,000 people each week, and we provide HIV prevention outreach, agricultural training and micro-credit, among many other desperately-needed services. We are adding 100 new patients a day, which may well make us the largest and most comprehensive HIV control system in all of Africa.

But statistics don't tell the story the way Selina can. Selina came to our clinic in the village of Mosoriot weighing only 70 pounds -- severely wasted from HIV/AIDS. A few years ago, she would have been doomed to die within a few weeks, leaving her children orphaned. The HIV/AIDS pandemic, the most horrifying killer I have ever witnessed in a lifetime of practicing medicine, would have claimed another victim.

But thanks to the generosity of Indianapolis-area donors, U.S. taxpayers and foundations that fund our program, Selina stopped at death's doorstep and turned around. After receiving the antiretroviral medication that was once thought to be too expensive and too cumbersome to work in Africa, Selina is alive and thriving.

Selina's is just one of 30,000-plus success stories from the IU-Kenya partnership. However, the skeptics who said we could not treat HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa were right about one thing: As bad as the African situation is now, sloppy treatment efforts could make it even worse. Poor compliance with the antiretroviral drug regimen can lead to vicious strains of HIV that respond only to expensive alternative drug combinations.

So if the pandemic that claimed nearly 3 million lives last year is to be halted, there first needs to be a model proving that effective and affordable HIV care can be delivered in the poorest countries in the world. I'm proud to say that the IU-Kenya Partnership has provided that model.

The key to our success is that we are able to draw upon the resources of the Indiana and Moi academic medical centers. The three essential components of a system effectively fighting HIV/AIDS in the developing world are patient care, training of health-care professionals and research into best practices. Academic medical centers such as IU School of Medicine and Moi University School of Medicine are uniquely prepared to take on this three-part mission of care, training and research.

Now that we have shown it can be done, more U.S. and African academic medical centers need to work together like Indiana and Moi. Even though it is heartening to see all the lives our Kenyan partners and we have been able to save, it also makes me sad to hear that our program may be the largest and most comprehensive in the world. After all, even our best efforts leave millions of our brothers and sisters in Africa still untreated and suffering.

But I see an opportunity that we cannot afford to lose: Africans are truly ready to tackle this crisis. Our partnership, for example, owes its success not to a handful of Americans like me but to the 700 Kenyans who are doing the hard work of building a health-care system, from physician leaders to the clinical officers who provide front-line care in remote villages like Chulaimbo and Burnt Forest.

After beginning with just four physicians in 1990, Moi University now has more than 100 faculty members. Public meetings about preventing HIV/AIDS that once drew a few hundred people now see several thousand attend and hundreds lining up to be tested for HIV.

Our patients are working to get the most production out of their farms and others are using micro-credit to start their own small businesses. What I see every day in Kenya tells me that the next generation of Africans is poised to tackle their continent's health and economic problems, and reach a future of self-sufficiency and prosperity.

But they will need all of our best efforts to help them get there.

Reference: About the IU-Kenya Partnership

The partnership between the Indiana University School of Medicine, Moi University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, began in 1989.

In 2001, IU and Moi responded to the HIV/AIDS pandemic by creating one of Africa's largest, most comprehensive and effective HIV/AIDS control systems.

The partnership's Academic Model for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS (AMPATH) treats more than 33,000 HIV-positive patients at 18 sites in Kenya, and feeds another 30,000 people each week.

IU-Kenya has programs to block mother-to-child transmission of HIV at birth and conduct HIV prevention outreach, as well as micro-credit, a fair-trade crafts workshop, agricultural co-operative, and program providing clothing and food to children orphaned by AIDS.

More than 500 Kenyans and Americans have participated in the academic medical exchange between Moi and IU.

To contribute to or learn more about the IU-Kenya Partnership, go to iukenya.org.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Joe Mamlin, M.D., professor emeritus of the Indiana University School of Medicine, is the Eldoret, Kenya-based field director of the IU-Kenya Partnership.

| View Profile & All Articles By: Joe Mamlin |

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