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ICOHRTA Report

Success Story

This extraordinary success story began in 1988, when Dr. Warren D. Johnson, Jr., Chief of the Division of International Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Weill Medical College, Cornell University, received Fogarty support for HIV/AIDS research and training (AITRP). His work focused on Haiti, and his key collaborator was Dr. Jean Pape. Dr. Pape earned his M.D. and did his residency at Weill Cornell before returning to Haiti in 1979. In 1983, Drs. Pape and Johnson published the first description of AIDS in a tropical LMIC country in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Understanding that a solid research base was needed in Haiti in order to develop the most effective anti-AIDS strategies, Dr. Pape established the Groupe Haitien d'Etudes du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infections Opportunistes (GHESKIO), in 1982. From an original staff of two, GHESKIO today has a staff of 110 that integrates patient services, health research, and training in HIV/AIDS and inter-related diseases. The GHESKIO Center is now an international research and training institution that has benefited from twenty years of research capacity building from Cornell and Vanderbilt Universities, supported by Fogarty funding.

A constant flow of research from the center, utilizing the almost 150,000 patients GHESKIO sees per year, helps Pape and his colleagues tailor GHESKIO policies to better serve the HIV-infected Haitian population. They have built an internal network to systematically monitor the success of health interventions and establish a robust link between evaluation and care to fit the unique challenges of delivering public health in Haiti. Dr. Pape and Dr. Johnson have recently received Fogarty awards to provide training in clinical, operational and health services research on AIDS and TB. These awards will train the personnel needed to monitor and evaluate the implementation of a new country-wide program to provide a standardized package of HIV care and prevention services to 300,000 people per year. The Government of Haiti asked GHESKIO to lead this effort.