OCI is assisting Macha Hospital in Zambia in a search for funds to carry out a highly innovative AIDS research project. This project is a game-changing experiment designed to demonstrate a way to eliminate AIDS over time. This experiment is significant because present approaches to AIDS treatment do not have the capability to end the epidemic.
The experiment will focus on the approximately 130,000 people living within 30 kilometers of Macha Hospital. The researchers will do the following:
- Conduct an education and training campaign to obtain buy-in from the community
- Test the entire population for AIDs
- Provide drugs to all who test positive
- Provide drugs to the spouse or partner of those who test positive to prevent them from contracting AIDs
A recent mathematical study suggests that this approach could reduce the incidence of the disease by 95% in 10 years and eradicate it within 30 – 40 years. To see this in perspective, one must realize the pieces of the present approach do not end the epidemic, and there is not a drug cure on the horizon.
Macha Hospital is a well managed and well run 210-bed facility about 100 miles west of Livingston, site of the spectacular Victoria Falls. Funds are being sought primarily from federal and private grant sources.
