Recent news
March 2011
HIV/AIDS vaccine research contributing to development in Kenya, blog post says
March 22, 2011 -- “I was very glad last month to hear Administrator Rajiv Shah describe” the US Agency for International Development’s (USAID) “deep commitment to sustainable development and building country-led health systems. These principles characterize USAID’s impact in Kenya, where USAID has supported the Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative (KAVI) through our partnership with the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI),” Omu Anzala, KAVI program director at the University of Nairobi, writes in a new USAID “Impact” blog post. He adds that although US programs such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) have helped increase antiretroviral drug access in Kenya, the “existing prevention, treatment, and care available are simply not enough to stop the epidemic. We need new and more effective prevention strategies, and, more fundamentally, we need to build a sustainable, national response to HIV specifically and to grow our country’s capacity to develop scientific solutions to our health problems more generally. We are accomplishing all of this with the assistance of USAID.”
According to Anzala, KAVI’s efforts have “not only contributed to the development of a desperately needed HIV vaccine, which is the only way to stop AIDS once and for all. It has also strengthened our country in many ways. Working closely with the Kenyan government and with support from USAID through IAVI, we have built state-of-the-art laboratories and clinical facilities and trained first-rate Kenyan scientists and technicians.” He concludes, “What USAID invests in building country-led health systems can produce not just extraordinary breakthroughs in health research but also independence, sustainable capacity, and opportunity in the world’s poorest countries. Administrator Shah’s commitment to ‘advancing science, technology, and innovation aimed directly at improving human welfare’ will yield a healthier, more secure world.” See the links below for more details.
