The program, Academic Model for the Prevention and Treatment for HIV/AIDS (AMPATH), was created by the Indiana University School of Medicine, the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, and the Moi University Faculty of Health Sciences in Kenya.
The new grant will allow IU and Moi physicians to increase the number of HIV-infected people they treat in Kenya from 2,000 to 15,000, and to establish HIV treatment and prevention programs in two additional rural communities over the next five years.
AMPATH is a model program that attracted the U.S. AID funding after successfully enrolling and treating more than 1,500 patients using modern HIV/AIDS therapy. It also instituted a successful mother-to-child-transmission prevention program in which more than 90 traditional birth attendants have been trained to care for HIV-infected women using prevention interventions. The program has educated community support groups about HIV, the importance of prevention and the need for testing.
Faculty and students also have established a practical, low-cost, high-production 10-acre farm in Kenya to provide high quality macro-nutrition to HIV-infected families.
AMPATH is opening a new facility in May 2004 in urban Kenya for teaching, research and patient care. A second new building will be opened in the rural community of Mosoriot for treatment, counseling, teaching and research. These and other treatment facilities will feature an electronic medical record system to help physicians track patients and provide better care.
In addition to the increase in patients treated and the two new rural programs, the new U.S. AID funding will: