WSJ.com - Opening a New Front In the War Against AIDS

An exciting idea!

WSJ.com - Opening a New Front In the War Against AIDS: "Today, world leaders in medicine, government, business, public policy and the arts will convene at the Global Health Summit in New York City to explore ways Americans can help solve global health challenges. During the opening discussions, they will also meet four young pediatricians who are dedicating the next year of their lives to a unique program designed to confront head-on what many consider to be the most formidable health crisis of our generation -- HIV/AIDS....

It is clear that doctors who know how to treat children -- pediatricians and family practitioners -- are desperately needed. And until there are adequate numbers to help the estimated 1.9 million children infected with HIV in Africa, the deaths likely will continue at the horrifying rate of more than 1,000 a day. This is nothing less than a scandal.

Bristol-Myers Squibb and Baylor partnered to establish the Pediatric AIDS Corps to focus our energies and resources on delivering specialized treatment and medical skills to children with HIV/AIDS in Africa. For each of the next five years, 50 specialist physicians will work in Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland, Uganda, Burkina Faso and Malawi, some of the countries hit hardest by the AIDS pandemic. They will devote at least a year -- and in some cases, two years -- to caring for children and training African health-care professionals on HIV management.

Some $22 million from the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and $10 million from Baylor will pay the doctors' living and training expenses and cover the costs of medical school loans while they are in the Pediatric AIDS Corps. An additional $8 million commitment from the company will expand the network of pediatric treatment facilities throughout sub-Saharan Africa. These children's clinics, complete with medical teams, up-to-date equipment and antiretroviral medications, will serve as a new backbone of pediatric care in Africa. The Pediatric AIDS Corps will operate not just in these clinics, but also beyond, into the more isolated areas devastated by HIV/AIDS....

These four are among a cadre of medical specialists in the newly created Pediatric AIDS Corps. The worldwide war against AIDS is fought in many ways and on many fronts; this team of specially trained doctors is the medical equivalent of a commando unit. Commissioned in June by Baylor College of Medicine and Bristol-Myers Squibb, it will soon drop behind the lines in southern Africa, where the doctors will focus on saving the lives of HIV/AIDS's most vulnerable victims.

Sub-Saharan Africa is home to barely 1% of the world's health-care work force, yet the region bears more than 60% of the world's burden of HIV/AIDS. That human-resources shortage affects the entire population, but it hits children especially hard. Because very few of the local health-care professionals have any training or experience in the care and treatment of HIV-infected children, they often view treating them as too complex and too difficult. As a consequence very few children on the continent have gained access to the treatment and lifesaving medicines commonly used in the U.S. and Western Europe. It is estimated that only one in 100 African children infected with HIV receives care of any kind. Simply put, too many children in Africa are dying of HIV/AIDS."