IHV Awarded $50 Million To Combat HIV Crisis In Zambia

BALTIMORE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine received a $50 million five year grant from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to support the program, “Stop Mother and Child HIV Transmission” in Zambia. PEPFAR is a $48 billion initiative launched in 2004 by former President George W. Bush and continued by President Barack Obama. The announcement was made on the heels of IHV reaching the 1 million mark in care for HIV patients overseas.

“This grant funding creates the opportunity to demonstrate the impact of connecting every pregnant woman with a community worker to expand HIV testing into the community, promote early engagement in care, and improve retention”

“This new funding will extend our reach and significantly grow the good work already being done by IHV’s Robert Sheneberger, MD and his team to combat HIV and AIDS in Zambia,” said Robert Gallo, MD, Director of the IHV, and most widely known for his co-discovery of HIV as the cause of AIDS and development of the HIV blood test. “We look forward to growing IHV’s effective education, diagnostic and treatment training models with the support of Zambia’s Ministry of Health.”

Through the $50 million five year grant, IHV will collaborate with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control to expand access and utilization of services for the Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV program, improve antiretroviral therapy coverage and effectiveness, enhance maternal child health services including the provision of better emergency obstetric and neonatal care, and lay the ground work for expanded community treatment of HIV within the Southern, Western, Eastern, and Lusaka provinces of Zambia.

“This grant funding creates the opportunity to demonstrate the impact of connecting every pregnant woman with a community worker to expand HIV testing into the community, promote early engagement in care, and improve retention,” said Dr. Sheneberger, the IHV principal investigator implementing the PEPFAR program in Zambia. “The targeted outcome is to eliminate transmission of HIV from mother to child, and improve maternal and infant survival.”

Under the direction of the IHV’s Division of Clinical Care and Research Director, Robert Redfield, MD, Dr. Sheneberger will lead a team of experts and personnel based in both Baltimore and Zambia to implement the new grant. The team will also include a small consortium of local and international partners including the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the Futures Group, the Church Health Association of Zambia, and the Zambia Ministry of Community Development, Maternal and Child Health.

The IHV will build upon its current work in Zambia including the establishment of the country’s first post graduate training programs in HIV medicine and infectious diseases, as well as providing technical assistance to numerous facilities providing integrated HIV care and treatment services.

Since 2004, the IHV has received more than $300 million in PEPFAR grants enabling the Baltimore-based Institute to care for more than one million people infected with HIV, to reach nearly four million people with prevention interventions and HIV testing, and to train 35,000 health care professionals throughout PEPFAR’s target countries who have, in turn, delivered more than 100 million doses of medication.

About the Institute of Human Virology

Formed in 1996 as a partnership between the State of Maryland, the City of Baltimore, the University System of Maryland and the University of Maryland Medical System, IHV is an institute of the University of Maryland School of Medicine and is home to some of the most globally-recognized and world-renowned experts in all of virology. The IHV combines the disciplines of basic research, epidemiology and clinical research in a concerted effort to speed the discovery of diagnostics and therapeutics for a wide variety of chronic and deadly viral and immune disorders - most notably, HIV the virus that causes AIDS. For more information, visit www.ihv.org and follow us on Twitter @IHVmaryland.

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