UNICEF, Baylor Partner To Expand Treatment to HIV-Positive Children in Africa
UNICEF and the Baylor College of Medicine on Tuesday announced they formed a partnership to expand access to antiretroviral drugs and other treatments for HIV-positive children in Africa, the Houston Chronicle reports (Hopper, Houston Chronicle, 2/28). UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Per Engebak and Michael Mizwa, Vice President of International Affairs with the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, signed the agreement, which will expand Baylor's operations to 20 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa (UNICEF release, 2/27). The partnership is open-ended and does not involve a specific project. Instead, Baylor will draft initiatives and goals and look to UNICEF to finance them. Such initiatives could include building more pediatric HIV/AIDS clinics, training lay people in home health care and providing dirt bikes for health workers to reach remote villages. UNICEF also will help Baylor forge formal links to already-established primary care centers, the Chronicle reports. UNICEF has "political and advocacy roles we don't have and ... fundraising capabilities we don't have," Mark Kline, BIPAI founder and director, said, adding, "We are implementers" (Houston Chronicle, 2/28). BIPAI has clinics in Romania, Botswana, Lesotho and Malawi that aim to treat 80,000 HIV-positive children in five years. The program plans to open centers in Burkina Faso and Uganda in 2007 (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 2/28). The partnership with UNICEF could help Baylor more than double the number of children in treatment in Botswana -- the site of its first clinic -- to 3,000 (Houston Chronicle, 2/28).
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