HIV/AIDS Training Centre in Uganda
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Source: http://www.unfoundation.org
HIV/AIDS: Experts To Develop African Medical Training Center
African and Western infectious disease experts have formed an alli-
ance to build the first state-of-the-art AIDS medical training facil-
ity in Africa in an effort to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The fa-
cility, whose creation was formally announced yesterday, will be
built in Uganda and is expected to be completed in early 2002 with
funding provided by the Pfizer Foundation. "It's going to be a gold-
standard kind of place, which is unrealistic in terms of care (else-
where) in Uganda, but we think we need that kind of facility for
training," said Canadian physician Allan Ronald, one of the co-
founders of the alliance.
The center will be run by the Academic Alliance for AIDS Care and
Prevention in Africa and the Ugandan government. The center will
train health care personnel all over Africa in the latest AIDS treat-
ment techniques, including management of complex drugs. Those profes-
sionals are then expected to return to their hospitals and clinics to
pass on the knowledge to their staffs. The alliance is already work-
ing with pharmaceutical companies to make available donated or low-
cost clinic supplies (Canadian Press, 11 Jun).
Besides training as many as 80 African clinicians a year, the center
is also expected to treat up to 50,000 patients "with the kind of
care that is available in the developed world but not yet widely used
in Africa," said Nelson Sewankambo, dean of Uganda's Makerere Univer-
sity medical school (Karl Vick, Washington Post, 12 Jun).
"This new approach will complement the work our own doctors are doing
and enrich the experience and knowledge of experts involved in the
project both in Uganda and in North America and Europe," said Ugandan
President Yoweri Museveni in a statement. "The clinic will have an
influence far beyond the doctors trained in it and the patients whom
we treat," said Dr. Jerrold Ellner, another founding alliance member
and one of the world's leading tuberculosis experts. "It is a reverse
pyramid. Each doctor can train dozens of other doctors and each doc-
tor can treat 200 to 300 AIDS patients at any one time" (Canadian
Press).
One of the US doctors involved in the project, Thomas Quinn, said
that Kampala was chosen as the site for the training center because
Uganda has been the most successful African country in its campaign
to fight HIV/AIDS (Andrew Craig, BBC Online, 11 Jun).
Pfizer Inc., the world's second largest drug maker, said it will
spend $11 million over the next three years to establish the training
center. Pfizer chair Henry McKinnell said he also intends to lobby
fellow manufacturers of AIDS treatment drugs to donate or deeply dis-
count another $50 million annually of advanced anti-retroviral drugs.
"We're eliminating their excuses," said the alliance's co-director,
Merle Sande, referring to pharmaceutical companies (Vick, Washington
Post).
McKinnell also said he hopes his company will maintain support for
the project for at least a decade. Members of the alliance are hope-
ful the new center will prove it is possible to establish an effec-
tive and sustainable HIV/AIDS care system in Africa, and said the
project's success could negate arguments that improving drug afforda-
bility is futile in a region lacking proper health infrastructure.
"No one would have an excuse any more to say we cannot introduce
anti-retrovirals into Africa because we do not have an effective in-
frastructure," Sande said (Mark Turner, Financial Times, 12 Jun).
The alliance is working closely with the public health and medical
communities in Uganda and intends to actively seek assistance from
the Ugandan Health Ministry, local organizations, the staff and fac-
ulty at Makerere University Medical School and Mulago Hospital, the
national hospital of Uganda (Academic Alliance for AIDS Care & Pre-
vention in Africa release, 11 Jun).
--
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