NEW YORK, June 26 /PRNewswire/ -- What began as a small crusade
to provide HIV-positive patients with leftover and discarded
treatments has grown into a full-scale program for providing
treatments for people living with HIV/AIDS in 14 of the poorest
African and Caribbean nations, according to AIDS Empowerment
and Treatment International (AIDSETI).
With pilot funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, UNAIDS and
Merck & Co., the group will employ a case management approach
to treating HIV/AIDS that has a proven track record in the
United States and Europe. In the 1980's, clinics in major U.S.
urban areas hard hit by the AIDS crisis began providing a full
range of medical and social services to patients under one
roof. This model has been successfully tested by associations
of people living with HIV and AIDS in 14 countries is now ready
to be scaled up.
"We are on the verge of expanding one of the most successful
small-scale methods for treating HIV/AIDS to the poorest
countries in the world in order to increase access to treatment
for millions of people living with HIV/AIDS," said AIDSETI
President and C.E.O. Hans Binswanger. "The methods we will
employ have evolved from countless local community programs
into a model that holds the promise of providing treatment and
related services around the world."
AIDSETI is committed to expand this model to over 6,000
patients in Africa and the Caribbean over the next 12 months.
This pilot phase will allow for the development of a fully
replicable model to be transported to some of the most heavily
infected and poorest communities around the globe. The program
will be detailed at a breakfast briefing on Wednesday June 27,
7:30 a.m. at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.
Through informal networks, activists here in the U.S. and other
developed countries have collected unused drugs and provided
them at no cost to partners in countries including Venezuela,
Cuba, Ivory Coast, Mali, Burundi, and Zimbabwe. The largest
such efforts have been managed by ACT-Up Paris, the African
AIDS Network, the African Services Committee, AID for AIDS,
AIDES Federation, Cuban AIDS Relief and other partners.
With the formal launch of AIDSETI last July at the
International AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, this
network of associations has garnered the support of mainstream
relief organizations including the Harvard AIDS Institute,
UNICEF, the World Bank and Doctors Without Borders. For more
information visit http://www.aidseti.org.
SOURCE AIDS Empowerment and Treatment International Web Site:
http://www.aidseti.org