Infectious Disease

The Uamuzi Bora project will implement and scale the use of an HIV electronic medical record within the national health system of Kenya. We aim to strengthen pathways of care for HIV by improving referral mechanisms, providing standardised clinical care and improving adherence to treatment and retention in care. Follow Verstergaard Frandsen on Twitter @vesfra"

Using low-cost cell phone technology can improve HIV/AIDS treatment outcomes in resource-limited settings. Our Grand Challenge is to develop this landmark research project into a broadly sustainable mHealth service using innovative business models. Follow WelTel on Twitter @WelTelAfrica"

Almost one in six people are HIV-positive in Njombe - a region with Tanzania's most uninformed population when it comes to the disease, according to surveys, and the country's highest rate of infection, now increasing among young adults. The area has no formal HIV education program and many children are orphans lacking parental guidance. This project will expand a pilot-tested, site-crafted, formally evaluated HIV/AIDS youth peer health educator program into primary schools in HIV-ravaged rural Tanzania, to empower youth in making healthy decisions.

We will make neutralizing antibodies against antigenic regions of HIV recently identified in rare cases of ""natural resistance"". A key will be to produce antibodies in alpacas because of their properties of simplicity, specificity, size & stability.

Some rare individuals are resistant to HIV infection; their immune system have a phenotype called immune quiescence. We propose to induce immune quiescence in highly susceptible women by using low cost anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce HIV incidence by 30%.

torvastatin study at Makerere University College of Health Sciences to test the role of the drug on HIV-associated immune activation among suboptimal responders to antiretroviral therapy. The drug will help to improve immune recovery among HAART-treated HIV-patients in Africa.

We will develop a portable, fast device that detects HIV RNA, and thus earliest detection possible (9 days). As it can be made at $1 per test, the test can be widely implemented in developing countries. No rapid test can currently detect any RNA.

We are designing a pilot trial in Rwanda for its Gene-RADAR® platform, a portable, low cost, point-of-care diagnostic that quantifies viral load of HIV strains in under an hour; without the need for conventional lab infrastructure. This will provide life-saving treatment for people living with HIV and prevent the spread of drug-resistant strains in Africa and beyond.

In CIRCB the overall objective of the project titled ""Optimization of a novel Biomarker for point-of-care (POC) monitoring of HIV-1 infection and HIV vaccine development,"shall be to develop and assess a novel biomarker for monitoring of HIV-1 infection in limited resource settings. Affordable rapid strategies for monitoring HIV-1 infection evolution at the bedside in resource limited countries would greatly increase coverage and expedite vaccine development. Follow Chantal Biya International Reference Center for HIV/AIDS Yaounde Cameroon on Twitter @CIRCBYaounde"

We will develop an inexpensive, easy-to-use quantitative sensor that can detect and count antibodies that are diagnostic of HIV infection and progression. This technology will benefit global health by enabling everybody to monitor its disease state thus reducing transmission.