Physical Health Mali Project #2754

HIV and TB care at the village level in Mali

by GAIA Vaccine Foundation

Project Report | Jul 7, 2020
Supporting HIV+ Women During the Pandemic

By Brendan Caver | Grant Research Intern

As we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, GAIA VF is continuing its commitment to preventing transmission of HIV from mothers to children. Mother-to-child transmission is extremely preventable, but it is necessary to have the right resources.

Preventing transmission requires medical interventions that include testing pregnant women for HIV and providing them with antiretroviral medication if they are HIV positive. If adequate testing and medication are provided, there is little reason to be concerned about transmitting HIV to a child. However, these medical interventions are absolutely necessary. As we find ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic, it is crucial that we continue to support HIV-positive mothers. The emergence of COVID-19 has not eliminated the presence of HIV; we must work just as hard as always to provide this essential healthcare. This is true even as pandemic circumstances complicate our normal routines.

Additionally, recent medical innovations such as the Pratt Pouch are promising and could be one of the most useful tools in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission in Mali. The Pratt Pouch is a packet of antiretroviral drugs. If administered within the first 72 hours after birth, it can prevent transmission. On top of this, the Pratt Pouch can be stored for up to a year, meaning that they can easily be distributed during any point in pregnancy and still be effective.

In September of 2019, Dr. Anne de Groot arrived to Mali with a shipment of Pratt Pouches. While the Pratt Pouch must still go through Institutional Research Board approval and clinical trials in Mali, it is worth noting that it has been commended by the World Health Organization and has successfully passed trials in Zambia, Tanzania, Uganda, and Ecuador. GAIA VF hopes to provide the most effective and convenient methods of medical care to the Malian people.

Your donation to GAIA VF during this time will help fund continued medical care for HIV-positive mothers, as well as steps that help eliminate mother-to-child transmission of the virus. Moving forward, donations will help fund research on more efficient technologies for this purpose. We appreciate your support.

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Mar 26, 2013
A vulnerable sector of the Malian population

By Mali Rochas | Executive Director

Sisters

GAIA Vaccine Foundation is launching a new program which is primarily focused on HIV prevention, HIV testing and access to care for the most vulnerable sector of the Malian population – young women and men, especially teenagers. The decision to focus on youth follows an evaluation of the impact of our programs that was performed with your support in 2011. We recently determined that there has been a steadily increasing incidence of new HIV infections among girls and women presenting at our clinic with their first pregnancy.

This increase occurred despite our ‘village-wide’ focus on HIV. So, what we were doing was not reaching women and young girls at risk. For 2013, we’re going to focus on this especially vulnerable group and therefore plan to:

Develop targeted prevention tools for young men and young mothers
Reach out to young mothers to reduce their rate of HIV acquisition.
Provide incentives to get tested, participate in education, and use condoms.
Educate: hire expert “youth” peer educators for the new program
Use the nutrition program for HIV+ mothers and their families as a model; develop a similar program for teenagers and very young mothers.

These sessions will also address the topic of cervical cancer and HPV. We have a new focus on cervical cancer in addition to HIV/AIDS because Cervical Cancer is a big killer of women in West Africa.

GAIA is lending its expertise in field site outreach to help with the distribution of available doses of cervical cancer vaccines. Right now in Mali, amidst a political crisis, there are 33,000 doses of the HPV vaccine, that can’t be distributed because public health dollars are supporting the military instead. However, the vaccine is perishable, and time is running out. If not utilized within the next few months, the vaccine and with it the possibility of more than 10,000 lives, will be wasted.

We have expert fieldworkers ready to distribute the vaccine, under the supervision of local healthcare providers. 11,000 adolescents will be vaccinated with one of the two vaccines that is currently approved for cervical cancer prevention. This vaccine is safe (no significant adverse events) and nearly 100% effective. (For detailed information please see our HPV Vaccine project posted on Global Giving).

GAIA VF’s vision for a healthier West Africa does not end with the HPV vaccine campaign. In fact, this trial will serves as a pilot for all clinical studies to come, and including our eventual HIV vaccine trial. We will pilot protocols for future trials, and put an infrastructure in place of processes and personnel, and to train those personnel with the skills needed to sustain a vaccine trial site. That way, when we have the GAIA vaccine ready, we can distribute it in West Africa eventually distribute the HIV vaccine that is currently being developed at no cost in developing countries like Mali.

Participating in this campaign to stop cervical cancer means that you are a true visionary.

Thank you for your support!

Links:

About the HPV Vaccine Project

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Nov 30, 2012
2012 World AIDS Day Update

By Mali Rochas | Executive Director

Pharmacy at the Hope Center Clinic in Sikoro

2012 is GAIA Vaccine Foundation’s 10^th anniversary!

10 years ago, we first set out to establish collaborations with Malian HIV researchers. GAIA VF was subsequently established to coordinate networking among HIV/AIDS governmental organizations, non-governmental organizations, and HIV care providers, as well as to tackle the problem of misinformation about HIV/AIDS treatment among clinicians and patients that could impair the ethical conduct of HIV vaccine trials in Mali.

With your help, we have been able to support the treatment of HIV seropositive women and their families at the Hope Center Clinic and at “Chez Rosalie”, our successful mother-to-child HIV transmission prevention (MTCTP) program, since 2005! We have established strong local and regional partnerships in Mali, performed vaccine readiness research, and implemented a comprehensive HIV care program in anticipation of performing HIV vaccine trials.

With approval from the Malian Ministry of Health, GAIA VF has addressed the issue of access to care by setting up a model village-based HIV care and treatment clinic. The Hope Center Clinic now features HIV case management, outreach to identify new patients, referral to care, and promotion of medication adherence. GAIA VF also partners with local organizations to improve access to specialty HIV care at the clinic. Our goal is to leverage innovative HIV management techniques, expand HIV treatment, and increase HIV knowledge in order to improve access and adherence to care, a model that could be implemented to expand village-level HIV care throughout West Africa.

Coup d’Etat in Mali

Unfortunately, 2012 was also the setting for a military coup, which took place in Mali in March. While there is ongoing civil unrest in the northern part of the country, our onsite director Dr. Karamoko Tounkara reports that all is calm in Mali’s capital of Bamako. Our patients and staff are safe, as are GAIA VF’s collaborating scientists.In spite of this unrest, we are still providing access to HIV testing, care, and prevention, as well as food for HIV-infected patients, at our clinic in Sikoro. While we have had to reduce the scope of our programs to cut costs, the current political crisis has had no other impact on our activities at the Hope Center Clinic.

Although circumstances have been hard, enrollment in the MTCTP program has been steady over the past months. Voluntary HIV testing requests have skyrocketed in the past year, increasing from 226 in 2011 to 412 in 2012! This reflects not only GAIA VF’s resilience in keeping its programs open when other programs were forced to close due to the current political turmoil, but also an awareness and appreciation for the services provided by our clinic. We believe that continuing to operate our programs will instill hope in the citizens of Mali to sustain them through these difficult times. Our Malian collaborators are continuing the fight against AIDS, and we need to bolster their optimism that peace and prosperity will be restored. More than ever, GAIA VF, our staff, and our patients need our, and your, support.

HIV Care Program

Since the launch of our antiretroviral (ARV) access program in 2009, more than 200 patients have enrolled in care at the clinic. In the past 2 years, GAIA VF was able to reduce the cost to patients of HIV screening and provide supplies and material for HIV screening activities. We reinforced our staff to levels appropriate for management of persons living with HIV/AIDS and hired a full-time pharmacist (full-time) trained in the management of care for HIV-positive patients, as required by the government of Mali.

2011-2012 Hope Center Clinic Achievements

438 Voluntary HIV test requests

221 HIV-infected adults and children in care

42 HIV-infected children in care

118 New HIV-positive patients on treatment

1040 Meals distributed to our patients

Hope is a Vaccine Award Dinner

Dr. Myron Cohen and Dr. Julio Montaner were awarded the 2012 International Hope is a Vaccine award for their ardent support of the “Treatment as Prevention” approach to ending AIDS, in the absence of an effective vaccine. The National Hope is a Vaccine award was given to Jon Cohen (correspondent with Science) for covering HIV/AIDS from every angle, and the Local Hope is a Vaccine award winner was Dr. Paul Loberti for his unfailingly devoted advocacy of HIV prevention as a means of addressing the HIV epidemic. Our 2012 awardees attended the World AIDS Conference in Washington DC and gathered for a friendly award dinner together with Congressman David Cicilline.

Treatment as prevention: “The new vaccine for AIDS?”

The GAIA Vaccine Foundation held a satellite session at the AIDS Vaccine Conference in Boston in September 2012. Guest speaker (and 2012 Hope is a Vaccine Award winner!) Dr. Myron Cohen discussed the potential for implementation of the “Treatment as Prevention” (TasP) approach to ending AIDS, in the absence of an effective vaccine. Dr. Zoumana Koty, our Malian HIV specialist, was the recipient of both a scholarship and a travel grant, enabling him to attend the conference and present his work on improving clinical outcomes for HIV-positive patients at the Hope Center Clinic in Mali.

December 1st is World AIDS Day!

Your support for GAIA could not be more important than it is right now – we cannot continue without your help. Help us preserve our HIV care, treatment, and education programs in Mali! Please stand strong with GAIA VF and make a donation today.

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