$60 Million to AMPATH

AMPATH, a program that grew out of the partnership between Indiana University School of Medicine and the Moi (Kenya) University Teaching and Referral Hospital, has received a 5-year, $60-million grant to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in Kenya, according to the IU School of Medicine. In addition, the IU School of Medicine will augment this with $6 million over the 5 years of the grant. With this agreement, the goal is to expand the program to provide care to an additional 150,000 Kenyans with HIV by 2012, of which at least 70,000 will be on antiretroviral drugs, and to interrupt the transmission of HIV through home-based counseling and testing in communities served by 19 facilities. In addition, the partnership intends to improve and expand control of tuberculosis, and assist and engage communities and families to meet the basic needs of 20,000 orphans and vulnerable children within the first 2 years of the grant. The grant was announced in Nairobi on Nov. 19 during a signing ceremony in the Ministry of Health Headquarters attended by Henrietta H. Fore, the administrator of USAID; Robert Einterz, M.D., associate dean for international affairs at the IU School of Medicine and co-founder of the IU-Moi partnership and AMPATH; U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael E. Ranneberger; AA/AFR Katherine J. Almquist; USAID/Kenya Mission Director Erna Kerst; Joe Mamlin, M.D., IU professor emeritus and co-founder of the IU-Moi Partnership; and, Moi University and USAID administrators and staff members. (AMPATH is the Academic Model for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS, which now treats over 55,000 HIV-positive patients at 19 sites in both urban and rural Kenya -- locations are shown on the map.)