Clinical Trial Centres
Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI)
The Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI) is a busy HIV teaching clinic operated by the Makarere University Faculty of Medicine with over 15,000 registered patients, approximately 4,000 on ARV treatment. It has an active, developing research programme in ARV and opportunistic infection (OI) management and a strong IT department for database development. It has trained over 900 African physicians and nurses in HIV management through hands on and didactic teaching through its AIDS Training Programme, a joint effiort with the HIVMA (US/Canada) and the Academic Alliance for AIDS Care and Prevention in Africa (US/Canada). It has a certified on-site laboratory affiliated with Johns Hopkins University that provides routine and specialized virologic and immunologic testing for the clinic.
Mbarara University Of Science And Technology (MUST)
Mbarara town is located 275km southwest of the capital city, Kampala. Mbarara University Teaching Hospital and Regional Referral Hospital was built in 1952 as a district hospital and serves a population of 1.1 million. The HIV/AIDS Clinic at Mbarara University Teaching Hospital is commonly known as the Immune Suppression Syndrome (ISS) Clinic. The clinic started in 1998 with 5 patients and formally initiated a clinic cohort data base in January 2004, consisting of all new patients enrolled in the ISS Clinic. To date, the clinic has registered 10,300 patients with 9,000 active patients. It receives between 200-300 new clients every month. Provision of ART was initiated in 2001 with over 3,000 patients currently on ART 1800 patients (60% of patients receiving ART) are getting their drugs free through the Ministry of Health, the Global Fund and MAPS, 1000 patients (33%) are receiving their medication through PEPFAR and 7% through self pay and collaborative sources.
The AIDS Support Organisation (TASO)
TASO Mbale, Tororo and Soroti are located in eastern Uganda. Between the three centre they serve about 12,500 active clients of whom about 4,500 are on ART. The measured discordancy rate in couples is 50-65%. Services offered include prevention, counseling, HIV testing, basic care package and ART as well as TB services.
TASO Mbale now has 18 counseling rooms, for medical examination rooms, one aromatherapy room, a laboratory and 02 nursing rooms. There is one room for the day centre activities and space where clients relax as they wait to be served on clinic days. TASO Mbale is among the TASO global centres giving ARVs to its clients. By the end of December 2005, a total of 982 (17 children) clients were already taking ARVs and 2,348 clients had been re-screened for ARVS. The ART programme is home based i.e. field officers deliver drugs to clients in their homes and constant monitoring is done. Under the ART programme, is the Home Based VCT. In the Home Based VCT, family members of the clients under go HIV testing by the field officers after consenting. TASO Mbale also runs the home based care programme. In this programme, clients are cared for at home by trained community nurses with support of trained ACWs and supervised by the medical coordinator and counseling coordinator. TASO sites have several well developed communities involved in HIV prevention. In addition we train several community cadres to provide home based care. We also fund three community based NGOs to carry out similar work in their catchment area. Governance of the three sites comes from within the community. Link:
Perinatal HIV Research Unit (PHRU)
The Perinatal HIV Research Unit of the University of the Witwatersrand (PHRU) is one of Africa’s largest AIDS research centres and a leading research institution in HIV prevention, care and? support and is committed to mitigating the impact of the HIV epidemic in southern Africa. The PHRU, established in 1996, functions as a Division of the Wits Health Consortium (WHC), the contract research arm of the Faculty of Health Sciences. The unit is based on the campus of the Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital (CHBH) in Soweto, South Africa, one of the world’s largest hospitals, within an urban African setting with a population of close to 3 million. The work in the PHRU utilizes a variety of research methodologies to optimize the interaction between biomedical, behavioural, sociological, statistical and operational research that supports our mission: “To mitigate the impact of the HIV epidemic.”
Pietermaritzburg Metropolitan Hospital Complex (PMHC)
The PMHC has dedicated outpatient clinics for ARV treatment, and TB treatment, whose clientele may be linked to partners or household members at risk. The Rape Crisis Centre in Pietermaritizburg also has clientele in need of ARV treatment as post-exposure prophylaxis, in a complex social and clinical context. These sites, and this collaboration offers considerable opportunity to develop intervention studies in HIV / TB prevention, given the support for dedicated infrastructure. Grey’s Hospital is a tertiary institution dedicated to providing a multi-disciplinary approach in the care of the patients that are referred to us. The vision is to be a centre of excellence and set the standard in ARV management in the uMgungundlovu District. We serve a diverse group of people and research opportunities abound.
