First HIV/AIDS medical centre for children opened in Swaziland
3 March 2006
Mbabane, Swaziland. The first paediatric centre dedicated to caring for
HIV/AIDS-infected infants and children in Swaziland, the African country
with the highest prevalence of AIDS in the world, officially opened today.
Operated by Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, in partnership with the
government, it is funded by Bristol-Myers Squibb's Secure the Future
philanthropic initiative. It is the third centre dedicated to treating
HIV-infected children to open as a result of the Bristol-Myers Squibb-Baylor
partnership in Africa, adding to a growing network of clinics addressing the
terrible impact of HIV/AIDS on children in Africa and elsewhere in the
developing world.
The Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of Excellence
— Swaziland will build capacity to fight HIV/AIDS by providing
state-of-the-art facilities for testing, treating and monitoring children
and their families and by training Swazi healthcare professionals.
Ten new doctors from the recently created Pediatric AIDS Corps will join
another on-staff pediatrician to work at and through the children's clinic,
marking an 11-fold increase in pediatricians in the country to treat HIV-
infected children estimated to number 16,000 by UNICEF. The center will
recruit one or two additional doctors who hail from Swaziland as well as
another 20 Swazi residents to complete the center's staff.
"This pediatric center of excellence is another way that we are living
our mission of extending and enhancing human life through focus, innovation
and compassion," said Peter R. Dolan, chief executive officer of
Bristol-Myers Squibb. "We are focused on addressing areas of significant
unmet medical need, including HIV/AIDS, cancer and other serious diseases,
by discovering, developing and providing innovative medicines for patients
around the world. And through our SECURE THE FUTURE(R) initiative in Africa,
we strive to act compassionately, by reaching out to people and communities
struggling with the HIV/AIDS pandemic to provide treatment and community
based care, as well as build critically needed health care capacity."
"Through the Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of
Excellence-Swaziland we are hopeful that significant strides in reducing the
prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Swaziland will chart a new course in the global
fight against the virus," said John L. McGoldrick, executive vice president
of Bristol-Myers Squibb. "The model created through our SECURE THE FUTURE(R)
programs and the Pediatric AIDS Corps will serve as a strong example to the
world that even in the hardest hit countries, it is possible to combat this
terrible virus."
Mark W. Kline, M.D., director, Baylor International Pediatric AIDS
Initiative, Baylor College of Medicine, said, "We are creating a
comprehensive treatment program here in Swaziland to address the issue of
pediatric HIV and also mother-to-child transmission, family health, health
care workforce training, and geographic availability of care. This complete
package will fight the HIV epidemic on many levels."
Background
Children's Clinical Centers of Excellence Network
The Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of Excellence
- Swaziland is the third of five facilities to be created by the
Bristol-Myers Squibb-Baylor partnership on the continent, all in resource
limited settings. The first opened in Botswana in 2003 and currently has
1,400 children under treatment. The Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's
Clinical Center of Excellence - Lesotho opened on World AIDS Day 2005. The
network will expand with two additional centers scheduled to open in Burkina
Faso and Uganda in 2007.
The Swazi center was built through a $2 million Bristol-Myers Squibb
grant. The two-story, 14,000-square-foot center has a large outpatient
clinic with 10 examination rooms, procedure rooms, a pharmacy, a small
laboratory and a state-of-the-art training facility.
Preventing Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT)
The prevention of mother-to-child transmission will be included as an
integral part of the treatment at the Swazi clinic. Busi Bhembe, executive
director of the Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of
Excellence - Swaziland, brings the experience of running the Pilot
Operational Research and Community-based Program (PORECO), a SECURE THE
FUTURE(R) treatment and community support center in Swaziland, and is a
pioneer in introducing PMTCT in Swaziland.
"By incorporating established protocols to prevent transmission of HIV
from mother to newborn, we are reducing the new infection rate of infants
down to levels seen only in western countries," said Ms. Bhembe. "Curtailing
the spread of the virus from mother to infant is a significant step in
reducing the overall pediatric HIV infection levels and to eventually
controlling the spread of the virus. This is a very important component of a
comprehensive treatment/prevention strategy." The children's HIV/AIDS center
will treat not only the children, but their whole families.
Pediatric AIDS Corps
"We estimate that one pediatrician can prevent 1,300 AIDS deaths in
children per year. Thus, with 10 Pediatric AIDS Corps members scheduled to
work in Swaziland, which has an estimated 16,000 HIV-infected children, we
will be able to treat virtually all of the children known to be infected.
The impact on this country will be enormous," said Dr. Kline.
The doctors of the Pediatric AIDS Corps will work and train in the
Children's HIV/AIDS center in Mbabane, but more importantly in the rural
health care facilities to serve those in remote locations. With 67% of the
Swazi population living outside of urban areas, expanding the geographical
range of treatment through decentralized staffing will greatly increase
access to treatment to the whole country.
The first class of 50 pediatricians and family care practitioners from
the U.S. and Canada to work in Africa has been filled. Seven recruits are
already working in Africa with the full class expected to be working in
Africa by late this summer. The unique Bristol-Myers Squibb-Baylor
partnership created the Pediatric AIDS Corps to send 50 pediatricians and
family practitioners per year over the next five years to Africa to serve at
the children's clinical centers of excellence and in surrounding areas.
These Bristol-Myers Squibb Fellows will provide care for approximately
80,000 children and train local healthcare professionals. The Pediatric AIDS
Corps was announced in June 2005 and is funded through a $22 million grant
from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and $10 million from Baylor.
Building capacity in the work force
Sustainability of the children's HIV/AIDS center and the development of
the national workforce are also being incorporated into this initiative.
"Training the national healthcare workers is an important component to
providing treatment for all those in need," explained Dr. Kline. "The lack
of human resources capacity is a major challenge to scaling up
antiretroviral therapy in Swaziland." In order to ensure continuity of
treatment in the long-term and to enrich the knowledge base in the country,
several Swazi doctors will be recruited and trained through the fellows of
the Pediatric AIDS Corps.
The Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of Excellence
— Swaziland and the Pediatric AIDS Corps are part of the Bristol-Myers
Squibb and Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation's SECURE THE FUTURE(R) initiative
launched in 1999 to help alleviate the HIV/AIDS crisis among women and
children in sub- Saharan Africa. The company has committed $150 million to
fighting HIV/AIDS in the region most affected by the pandemic. Some 200
grants have been awarded since the initiative began, including many programs
in Swaziland such as the Save the Children-Swaziland HIV/AIDS Program, The
Forum for African Women Educationalists Swaziland (FAWESWA) — Developing the
Capacity of Support Programs and Caregivers, and Co-ordinating Assembly of
NGO's (CANGO) — Civic Education Project for Children Infected and Affected
by HIV/AIDS in Swaziland.
In addition to its commitment in Africa, the Bristol-Myers Squibb
Foundation funds programs through its Global HIV/AIDS Initiative in
Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, Russia, the Ukraine and France.
Links
Bristol-Myers Squibb: http://www.bms.com/
SECURE THE FUTURE:
http://www.securethefuture.com/
Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative:
http://www.bayloraids.org/
To top
|