IHV/UM School of Medicine Awarded $64M

February 26, 2004
Contact: Timothy S. McCoy (mccoy@umbi.umd.edu) 410-706-1954

Award Part of President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

The University of Maryland School of Medicine has been awarded the largest health care services grant in the history of the University of Maryland, Baltimore. The $64 million grant will be used by the University of Maryland Institute of Human Virology (IHV) to provide care, treatment and counseling to people living with AIDS in Africa and other developing countries.

The award is part of a $335 million grant to a five-member faith-based consortium, led by Catholic Relief Services. The Maryland-based consortium includes the Interchurch Medical Assistance of New Windsor, Maryland, the New York-based Catholic Medical Mission Board, and the Washington D.C.-based Futures Group. Together, the consortium has extensive international experience and expertise in the delivery of HIV care, prevention and support efforts.

The grant by the Health Resources and Services Administration will enable the consortium to nearly double the delivery of Anti-HIV drugs to HIV-infected persons in parts of Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. In addition to providing Anti-Retroviral Therapy, the consortium will provide a wide range of support services to people living with HIV/AIDS. These services cover a wide range of prevention and treatment activities, counseling, income generation projects for people living with HIV/AIDS and care for AIDS orphans.

While the main objective of the consortium is to ensure that people living with HIV/AIDS have access to treatment for HIV and high quality medical care, the program will go far beyond drug procurement and treatment.

"The consortium will expand, on a sustainable basis, the provision of durable therapy to the greatest number of patients in need," says Robert Redfield, MD, professor of medicine, microbiology and immunology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and director of the IHV’s Clinical Care & Research Division. "The program will be based on leading edge medical science, national protocols and programs, and cost-effective deployment of program resources. This award also is the largest health-related grant in the history of the University of Maryland and and is the result of the intrinsic academic synergy betwen the IHV and the University of Maryland School of Medicine.”		Robert Redfield, M.D.
"I am especially pleased that Dr. Redfield and School of Medicine faculty will provide this necessary care where it is needed most," says Dean Donald Wilson. "I hope this is only the beginning of a long and productive relationship with Catholic Relief Services and other faith-based organizations that make up the consortium." Each of the consortium members currently support quality, effective, and holistic care in the treatment of multiple complex illnesses, including HIV/AIDS, throughout Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, as well as other countries throughout the developing world.		Dean Donald Wilson

Together, they possess the resources to effectively scale up already-successful anti-retroviral interventions in response to the global AIDS epidemic. "What is unique about this partnership," said Ken Hackett, president of CRS, "is that it maximizes the Catholic and mainline Protestant health delivery systems, and the medical and scientific expertise of the University of Maryland."

This grant is the result of an unprecedented and historic five-year, $15 billion commitment by President Bush and the U.S. Congress to treat 2 million persons with HIV/AIDS, prevent 7 million new infections, and provide care and support for 10 million people living with HIV/AIDS, including orphans. The approved budget for year one totals $24.7 million, with recommended future support to bring the total grant award to $335 million over five years.

Under the HRSA-funded initiative, the consortium’s five-year grant will aid 14,900 HIV/AIDS patients in the first year and will increase to 137,600 patients by year five. Nine countries, including South Africa, Zambia, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, Haiti and Guyana, are the proposed recipient countries of ART therapy. They are part of the fourteen countries listed in President Bush’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.