Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation Supports HIV Treatment Roll-Out in China

Over the past few months, hundreds of people with HIV/AIDS in rural China have been started on anti-retrovirals (ARVs) as part of the Chinese government's program to provide HIV/ AIDS care and treatment to people in need. A team from the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, an affiliate of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation led by Dr. Eric Goosby, is playing a key role in this recent treatment scale-up.

Pangaea began working in China in May of 2004 as a partner in the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative. Pangaea's role has been to provide technical assistance to the Chinese Ministry of Health in expanding a national program for HIV/AIDS care and treatment. Pangaea professionals, including Dr. Goosby, Deborah Von Zinkernagel and Paul Bouey, are providing assistance in a number of areas, including the development of national treatment guidelines for the use of ARVs, clinical training of health professionals, and development of systems for monitoring and evaluation. Pangaea has also hosted training sessions for Chinese physicians in San Francisco as part of an overall effort to inform the Chinese medical community about the latest in HIV/AIDS care and treatment.

Dr. Goosby and the Pangaea team have made more than a dozen trips to China over the past 16 months to help launch China's HIV/AIDS treatment programs. According to Dr. Goosby, "It's a very hopeful situation. Based on a strong commitment from our Chinese colleagues in the national Ministry of Health, we're seeing a rapid progression from planning to training to treatment. It's very satisfying to be there on the ground in a small clinic thousands of miles from Beijing and see Chinese physicians that we've helped train initiating ARV treatment for their patients."

At the provincial level, Pangaea has so far been advising on the development of training programs in Anhui and Yunnan provinces, two of the areas in China hardest hit by HIV. The Anhui training center graduated its first group of physicians in March and clinical training and mentoring of another group is currently underway. In the Yunnan Province, a work plan was finalized earlier this year that will scale-up comprehensive treatment and care in four heavily impacted regions. Clinical training in Yunnan began in late June. It is estimated that 3,000 people in the province will be newly placed on ARVs over the next few years as part of this effort.