AWARDS

South Mrican researchers awarded R220 million
research grant

The project will:

• Evaluate an affordable HIV/AIDS treatment programme
for adults and children in a family setting at primary

care level.

• Test whether treatment interruption is an affordable
and feasible way of controlling HIV infection in children

that reduces the progression to AIDS.

• Determine the efficacy of two standard childhood
vaccines (used to prevent pneumonia and meningitis)

in preventing AIDS-related complications in infants.

• Evaluate the community effect of highly active

antiretroviral therapy on sickness and deaths due to

AIDS and tuberculosis.

• Develop simple, inexpensive methods of diagnosing HIV

and monitoring treatment and drug resistance.

Professor James Mclntyre and Glenda Groy. Executive
Directors of the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, Chris Hani

Barogwanath Hospital, Soweta.

For further information contact:

Professor Rob Dorrington, UCT Centre for Actuarial

Research
Tel. (021) 650-2467

Or Debbie Bradshaw, MRC Burden of Disease Research

Unit

Cell: 082 461 1234

----------- HHRUARY 2003

'Low-income households in South Africa carry the greatest

burden of HIV!AIDS, experience the greatest negative

effects, and have the least reserves to cope: says Professor

Mclntyre. The new CIPRA grant, 'Safeguarding the

Household: Comprehensive AIDS Research', will address

HIV/AIDS as a problem not simply of individuals but of

entire families, he explains, and all family members may

participate in the studies. The cutting-edge research

programme will focus on aspects of HIV treatment in adults

and children, tuberculosis and affordable laboratory tests.

'This research agenda is of crucial importance to South

Africa and our region. It will gather essential information

for the government's AIDS programmes in the future, and

covers many of the key areas raised in the recent cabinet

statement on AIDS; explains Professor Mclntyre. The grant

award recognises the quality of South African AIDS

research and will provide the opportunity to develop many

more local researchers through an extensive, linked,

training programme:

The United States National Institutes for Health has

announced the award of a major research grant to leading

South African AIDS researchers. The $21.3 million (about

R220 million) award over 5 years will support HIV/AIDS

research in a family setting, a rarely tried approach to

fighting the disease. This grant is the largest yet made by

the Comprehensive International Program for Research on

AIDS (CIPRA). This national collaborative research effort will

be led by Professor James Mclntyre and co-ordinated by

the Perinatal HIV Research Unit of the University of the

Witwatersrand.

THf SOUTMtRN MRICAN JOURNAL or HIIJ MfDICINf

Making the epidemic more visible, and underscanding its

dynamics through such reports is important not only in

managing the impact of the epidemic but also in eventually

being able to turn the tide of it. For all spheres of planning,

it is essential to have an understanding of where the

country stands in terms of HIV!AIDS.