Houston Business Journal - July 27, 2007

 

The Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative will increase the number of physicians it has assigned to Lesotho and build satellite clinics to scale up its commitment to the southern African country, one of the hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic.

 

The value of this new commitment will be about $2 million over an initial 18-month period.

 

The expansion of services is being funded by Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital and the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation.

 

Dr. Mark Kline, president of BIPAI, announced the expansion of services during a recent visit to Houston by Lesotho Prime Minister Pakalitha Bethuel Mosisili.

 

Kline said the number of physicians assigned to the country will be increased from 10 to at least 14 and at least 10 satellite clinics will be built and opened, providing HIV/AIDS care and treatment services to children and families in each of Lesotho's 10 districts.

 

More than 1,500 HIV-infected children already are being cared for at the center.

 

"Our commitment to Lesotho began in 1999 with health professional education," said Kline, a professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine and chief of retrovirology at Texas Children's Hospital.

 

Partnering with the government of the country, Baylor opened a state-of-the-art treatment center, the Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Center of Excellence, in 2005.

 

Kline said there was one pediatrician in the entire country of Lesotho until BIPAI sent another physician in 2005 to lead the effort to develop a pediatric treatment center.

 

The Pediatric AIDS Corps, a joint program of BIPAI, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Baylor College of Medicine, sent 10 more physicians in August 2006.