Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - November 20, 2007
The grant, providing support over five years, gives the program developed by IU and Moi University School of Medicine in Eldoret, Kenya, the ability to treat thousands more patients, officials said.
This is "one of the greatest things ever to happen in Kenya as far as HIV is concerned," Dr. Sylvester Kimaiyo, the program's manager, wrote in an e-mail from Kenya. "Saving many lives has never been this hopeful ... This gives the partnership the base and the backbone to leverage more funds to do more for all our patients."
The Academic Model for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS, known as AMPATH, cares for about 52,000 HIV-infected patients at its 19 facilities. The grant, which was announced Monday in Nairobi, Kenya, and will be augmented by $6 million from IU School of Medicine, will allow the program to treat about 125,000 Kenyans.
The additional money will make it feasible for program workers to go door to door in Kenya, looking for people in the community who might have the disease, said Dr. Robert Einterz, AMPATH co-founder and associate dean for international affairs at IU medical school.
In addition, the partnership intends to expand tuberculosis control work and help communities and families meet the basic needs of 20,000 orphans and vulnerable children within the first 2 years of the grant.
Kenya is now one of 15 nations targeted for additional funding from President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Funding for Kenya has increased from about $92.5 million in fiscal 2004 to $368 million in 2007, according to the federal government.
Dr. Fatuma Some, a general internist who teaches at Moi Medical School, said that in the mid-1990s many people with AIDS waited until the last possible moment before seeking treatment because of the stigma associated with the disease.
"It was very frustrating and very sad indeed because many times there was very little you could do," said Some, who is in Indianapolis as part of the educational exchange. "There was a lot of stigma, fear and hopelessness, and once you diagnosed it, the progression to death was very, very fast."
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