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Family Health International |
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Family Health International Launches New HIV/AIDS Prevention Program -- February 10, 1998Family Health International (FHI), a nonprofit health organization dedicated to improving reproductive health worldwide, and five partners in the field of international health recently inaugurated a new HIV/AIDS prevention and care project for developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Central and Eastern Europe. The Implementing AIDS Prevention and Care (IMPACT) Project, funded by a five-year cooperative agreement awarded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), will support the Agency's efforts to bring state-of-the-art HIV/AIDS prevention and care programming to resource-poor nations where the spread of the pandemic threatens advances in health and development. Together, FHI and its five partners--Management Sciences for Health, the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health, Population Services International, the Institute for Tropical Medicine, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--bring to the project a wide range of expertise in program design and management, behavioral change and biomedical interventions and research, behavior change communication, technical and management training and capacity building, mass media dissemination, program evaluation, policy development and advocacy, and diagnosis and management of sexually transmitted infections (STIs). "This broad range of capabilities enables IMPACT to tailor initiatives to the specific needs and strategic objectives of individual USAID country missions that complement or enhance those identified by the countries themselves," said Dr. Peter Lamptey, IMPACT's director. Based in Arlington, Virginia, IMPACT builds on more than 11 years of experience accrued during the recently completed AIDS Control and Prevention (AIDSCAP) Project (1991-1997) and its predecessor, the AIDSTECH Project (1987-1991), both of which were implemented by FHI. The $200 million AIDSCAP Project, USAID's flagship HIV/AIDS prevention program, was the largest of its kind ever undertaken internationally, encompassing more than 750 HIV/STI projects in 45 countries. IMPACT's technical strategy reflects important lessons learned during the earlier projects. Rather than focus primarily on individual behavior, the project will also seek to promote simultaneous social, environmental, and infrastructural change within the countries where it works to enhance the ability of governments, international nongovernmental organizations, and communities to respond to the pandemic. Helping these entities develop ways to provide better care and support for those already infected with HIV and their families will also become a more prominent feature of IMPACT's prevention programs. "Because the epidemic is so advanced in many developing regions, the burden of care for people who are ill and for children orphaned by AIDS is an enormous social cost," said Dr. Lamptey. "Integrating care into prevention efforts has thus become imperative to preserving hard-won gains in development and health." Founded in 1971, FHI was one of the first organizations in the world to respond to the spread of HIV/AIDS in developing nations, beginning in 1987 with foundation-supported projects that reached marginalized populations in Ghana, Cameroon, and Mali. FHI is also the international master contractor for the HIV Network for Prevention Trials (HIVNET), a seven-year initiative funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health to evaluate HIV vaccine candidates and other prevention strategies. |
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