Press Release

May 31, 2005
Contact: Claudia Costabile
ccostab1@jhmi.edu


New Health Sciences Building Opens in Uganda

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health collaborate with Makerere University

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health opened a new health sciences building this month in collaboration with the International Centers for Excellence in Research (ICER) of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The Rakai Program will benefit a population of more than 12,000 people from the Rakai district in Uganda.

The ICER program’s main goal is to develop a sustained research program of excellence in areas of high infectious disease burden through partnerships with scientists in developing countries, and it represents the collaboration between the Uganda Virus Research Institute of Uganda’s Ministry of Health; researchers at Makerere University, Kampala; Columbia University, New York; and Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore.  ICER is supported through funding by the Intramural Research Program of NIAID.

The Rakai program’s focus is a large-scale, population-based, epidemiological HIV study of 12,000 adults in more than 50 Rakai communities each year. Other infectious diseases will also be studied, including malaria, tuberculosis, STDs and HPV, as well as AIDS-related cancers such as Kaposi’s sarcoma and Burkitt’s lymphoma. The program also provides antiretroviral drugs and treatment for other diseases.

The program was started in 1987 by Ugandan researchers, in collaboration with researchers from Columbia University and later joined by experts from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Ronald Gray, M.D., is the Johns Hopkins University primary investigator of the program. The program now employs more than 400 Ugandans in Rakai and Entebbe.

“Previously, space constraints limited the research and treatment that could be undertaken,” said Gray. “With the construction of this building, the Program will continue to support the existing public health systems and improve prevention programs for HIV/AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases in Uganda.”

Funding for the building was provided by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and The Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Bloomberg School of Public Health. NIAID provided laboratory equipment for the new ICER Laboratory and IT Satellite Communications.

On the Web at:
http://www.jhsph.edu/publichealthnews/articles/2005/Gray_Rakai.html