Perinatal HIV Research Unit

The largest HIV and AIDS research unit in Africa, under the University of Witwatersrand, Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU) was established in 1996, to check the propagation HIV from mother to child. It is located in one of the largest hospitals in Soweto, South Africa, called Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital. All the researches and scholarly activities, pertaining to HIV AIDS, occur here. However, its work have now expanded to various other aspects of HIV, including, treatment, prevention, vaccination, and even social research.

AIMs of Perinatal HIV Research Unit:

• To reduce the impact of AIDS epidemic in Africa
• Join hands with the local communities at the grass root level, for a better outcome
• Empowerment of the pauperized patients
• Research should be carried out with the best standard of ethics, retaining the dignity of the community and the rights of the people.

PROJECTS taken up by Perinatal HIV Research Unit:

• The unit takes up diligent bio-medical research projects, covering prevention, treatment and care.
• It conducts voluntary counseling and testing (VTC) for couples, educating them about safe sex, loyalty towards one partner, and other important aspects related to HIV. For young children they conduct free vaccination programs, vaccine trial programs and diaphragm interventions.
• The unit conducts clinical trials for better antiretroviral therapy, in collaboration with other drug research companies. The initial and the biggest project taken up by Perinatal HIV Research Unit was prevention of mother to child transmission. In collaboration with National/ Provincial Health Department PMTCT protocol, it became a huge success in 2001. Together they opened thirteen clinics that council the pregnant women free, offer rapid HIV testing and post test counseling. This project also has provision for TB screening and WHO staging, Group test on HIV/AIDS and pregnancy, CD4 test counts, and infant feeding counseling. Another successful project was the Tirisanong care treatment in Soweto, with the help of US President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS. It aims to expand the Comprehensive Care Management and Treatment services, in order improve on the quality and quantity of the treatment program in Soweto. It involves more health care workers in the health care centers by giving them proper training, and strive to improve the communication between the patients, community workers and doctors. The project also works at improvising the technical expertise and research infrastructure.
• The Pediatric treatment Project was started in 1998, to provide triple therapy for HIV infected children-
  1. The Cher Trial
  2. CIPRA-SA Project 4
  3. Paediatric Immune Correlates of early Anti HIV Therapy.

The organization has also carried out a number of Social investment projects like mindset health (to impart HIV education and training to health care workers, patients and general public) and Twilight street childrenProject (The HIV positive children are given distant-learning facilities through broadband, so that they get a proper direction to future)

There are many other projects taken up by PERINATAL HIV RESEARCH UNIT that provides care to people at every stage of HIV. Its work was initially limited to Soweto. But now, it is expanding its work to Limpopo, Mpumalanga, and Western Cape. As many as 200,000 women and 17000 men have had access to antiretroviral treatments, in the last seven years, due to the efforts taken up by Perinatal HIV Research Unit.