Haiti: AIDS clinic exceeds expectations

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of becoming rich and famous so that I could single-handedly save the world.  At the top of my “world that needs saving” list was a little Caribbean country called Haiti—“the poorest country in the world”, as I had been told.  I am no longer a little girl, and instead of being rich and famous, I work in the humble HIV prevention field.  While I no longer believe it’s a one-woman gig, Haiti is still near the top of my “world that needs saving” list.  Haiti has the highest HIV infection rates in the Caribbean and is second only to the worst affected sub-Saharan African countries on a world scale.  The January 12th earthquake is being called one of the most devastating natural disasters in human history, and we are all bombarded with news and images.  In hopes of blogging something original, I have tried to focus my attention on how the HIV/AIDS community is responding to the quake.

A bit of history … The first Latin American country to gain independence and the first black-led republic following its 1804 slave rebellion, Haiti is a nation with a proud and rebellious past.  But a string of oppressive dictators have left the country without infrastructure and plagued by poverty and corruption from which it has not been able to recover.  And now this …

Haiti was the first developing country to document cases of AIDS, in 1983, when an organization called GHESKIO (a French acronym for Haitian Group for the Study of Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections) published their experiences in the New England Journal of Medicine.  Since then, the Gheskio clinic has been named a “Public Utility” by the Haitian government and is recognized internationally as a centre of excellence, leading the way as a research and training centre.  According to a fabulous piece by Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, published Wednesday in the Wall Street Journal, Gheskio is one of Haiti’s few world-class institutions.  The clinic, headed by Haitian-born infectious disease specialist Dr. Jean Pape, played a role in securing a safe blood supply, and has developed several prevention campaigns, that seem to be having some effect.  According to the UNAIDS 2008 Report on the Global AIDS Epidemic, HIV prevalence among pregnant women dropped from 5.9% in 1996 to 3.1% in 2004 and has remained stable since then.  The Gheskio pharmacy tracks whether clients have picked up their antiretroviral treatment, and if they have not, an outreach worker is sent to their home.

“The earthquake has set us back about five years,” says Dr. Pape, yet Gheskio’s disaster contingency plan has been remarkably effective.  Radio ads announced to the population that the clinic is still open for business and told people where they could go to pick up their HIV meds.  Many of the staff found their way to work, some walking miles through rubble and chaos to get there.  The clinic has been able to see 85% of their usual caseload since the quake.  What struck me the most in reading Dugan’s article is the fact that the clinic, which has suffered an estimated $10 million worth of damage, is also treating more than 2,000 earthquake victims.  While making sure Haiti’s HIV positive population get their meds is the number one priority, the clinic has put all research initiatives on hold so that they can focus on treating and providing for the injured.

To read more about Gheskio and their amazing earthquake response, visit their website.  They need $300,000 immediately for food and medicine, and will except donations of $1 to $2000 using PayPal.

-Miriam

This blog represents the ideas of individual writers, and does not necessarily reflect any formal stance taken by Positive Women’s Network.

This was posted on Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 10:00 am and is filed under Daily Moments, HIV Treatment, Networking, News . Feel free to respond, or trackback. Read our comments policy.

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