Abstract:
In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 28 million people are living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and
acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). In 2001, Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya joined with Kenya’s second
national referral hospital, Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) and Indiana University (IU) to establish the
Academic Model Providing Access To Healthcare (AMPATH). AMPATH’s missions were to (1) provide high-quality
patient care; (2) educate patients and health care providers; and (3) establish a laboratory for clinical research in HIV/AIDS
(
http://medicine.iupui.edu/kenya/hiv.aids.htm
l
). Leveraging the power of an academic medical partnership, AMPATH
has quickly become one of the largest and most comprehensive HIV/AIDS control systems in sub-Saharan Africa, providing
a comprehensive system of care that has been described as a model of sustainable development (Tobias, 2006). Delivery
of services occurs in the public sector through hospitals and health centers run by Kenya’s Ministry of Health. AMPATH
currently implements prevention activities that touch the lives of millions of persons in a wide geographic area. The
research arm of AMPATH, created to facilitate and manage the international research agenda being generated by Kenyan
and US faculty, includes the Global Livestock CRSP’s HIV Nutrition Project (HNP), “Increasing Animal Source Foods
in Diets of HIV-infected Kenyan Women and Their Children,” which is a collaborative initiative between AMPATH and
faculty from Moi University, Indiana University and the University of California, Los Angeles.
