NIH Funds Clinical Research in Tanzania

HIV/AIDS

NIH Funds Clinical Research in Tanzania

Patients with their arms or legs suspended by strings for skeletal traction to treat bones broken in car accidents lay several to a cot in rooms with more than a dozen beds. Credit: NIH

A wheelbarrow used for an ambulance. Dusty, rut-ridden roads that make seeing a doctor a rare event reserved for the seriously ill. Patients with limbs suspended by strings for skeletal traction to treat bones broken in car accidents. They lay several to a cot in rooms with more than a dozen beds.

These are a few scenes from Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), a hospital in the small town of Moshi in northern Tanzania near the foot of Mt. Kilimanjaro. KCMC, together with Duke University Medical Center and Kiwakkuki, a community organization fighting HIV/AIDS, receives NIH funding to conduct clinical research on HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.

The seeds of the collaboration were sown in the 1980s, when Duke collaborated with Tanzanian colleagues in Dar es Salaam, where Prof. John Shao worked before he moved to Moshi to become KCMC executive director in the mid-1990s.

The KCMC/Duke relationship moved with Shao and in 2002 expanded its focus on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. NIH funding followed and snowballed as grants to develop the site’s infrastructure and capacity, launch an initial HIV voluntary counseling and testing service and establish training opportunities built on each other. The synergy of KCMC and Duke leadership, the number and diversity of international research grants and community involvement make Moshi an example of the complexities of conducting global health projects.

Dr. John Crump, Duke’s principal investigator at the site, says they are fortunate to collaborate closely with two of Tanzania’s leading health care and research organizations: KCMC and Kiwakkuki (the name is an abbreviation of the Swahili phrase, “Women aggressively fighting HIV/AIDS”). Although the site’s research focus has been HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases, it is expanding into other health issues: cervical cancer, cardiovascular disease and car crashes.