UCLA partnership receives $12 million grant to improve HIV care in Malawi

By Enrique Rivero

The U.S. Agency for International Development has awarded $12 million to a partnership that includes the UCLA Department of Medicine to improve the quality of HIV care in Malawi.
 
The partnership, called EQUIP-Malawi, (Extending QUality ImProvement for HIV/AIDS in Malawi), comprises the UCLA Program in Global Health and the division of general internal medicine and health services research at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA; the Partners in Hope Medical Center, a non-governmental agency in Lilongwe, Malawi; the Baylor College of Medicine Children's Foundation-Malawi; the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation; and Toga Laboratories of South Africa.
 
UCLA's share of the five-year grant is $2.5 million. Dr. David Eisenman, UCLA assistant professor of medicine, division of general internal medicine and health services research, is the UCLA project director. The overall project director for EQUIP-Malawi is Dr. Perry Jansen, a UCLA-trained family physician and founder of Partners in Hope Medical Center in Malawi.
 
"EQUIP will rapidly improve the lives of thousands of people in Malawi by reducing new infections in infants and adults and by ensuring more persons who are infected get the quality treatment and care they need," Eisenman said. "It's a privilege to bring UCLA's skills and resources to help Malawi improve the quality of its HIV care."
 
Dr. Thomas J. Coates, director of the UCLA Program in Global Health and associate director of the UCLA AIDS Institute, is the UCLA project overseer and will chair the EQUIP-Malawi Steering Committee with membership from the United States, Malawi and South Africa.
 
"The UCLA Program in Global Health has been a long-term partner of Partners in Hope in Malawi," said Coates, who is also a UCLA professor-in-residence of medicine in the division of infectious diseases. "We are pleased to join them in this effort and work with the other important partners - Baylor College of Medicine, the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and Toga Laboratories."
 
Project co-directors are Dr. Risa Hoffman, a UCLA clinical instructor of medicine in the division of infectious diseases, and John Hamilton, director of the UCLA-Malawi Initiative in the UCLA Program in Global Health,
 
EQUIP-Malawi project capitalizes on the partners' existing networks, infrastructure and acquired expertise and has three complementary objectives:

• Strengthening the continuum of HIV care among various health services, facilities and communities in Malawi.
• Developing training and mentoring programs to improve workforce capacity and quality of care.
• Creating a consortium of sites for operational research to improve the quality of HIV care and training.

For more information about EQUIP-Malawi, visit the Program in Global Health's website at www.globalhealth.med.ucla.edu.

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent federal government agency that receives overall foreign policy guidance from the Secretary of State. It supports long-term and equitable economic growth and advances U.S. foreign policy objectives by supporting economic growth, agriculture and trade; global health; and democracy, conflict prevention and humanitarian assistance. With headquarters in Washington, D.C., USAID's strength is its field offices around the world. It works in close partnership with private voluntary organizations, indigenous organizations, universities, American businesses, international agencies, other governments, and other U.S. government agencies. USAID has working relationships with more than 3,500 American companies and over 300 U.S.-based private voluntary organizations.

The UCLA Program in Global Health (PGH) is part of the division of infectious diseases, department of medicine, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. PGH partners with academic institutions in developing countries to advance prevention, policy, and clinical research for HIV/AIDS and other diseases in all regions of the world. It works with developing-country partners to integrate treatment and prevention of HIV, implement innovative prevention programs, stimulate the enactment of beneficial policies and laws, address gender inequity, and train the next generation of U.S. and developing-country scientists and advocates to continue this essential work.

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