14752: Hermantin: Miami-Herald- UM given $2.5 million for pediatric AIDS work (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami-Herald
Posted on Sat, Feb. 08, 2003

UM given $2.5 million for pediatric AIDS work
BY ELINOR J. BRECHER
ebrecher@herald.com

Against a backdrop of unprecedented attention to the Third World AIDS
epidemic, University of Miami doctors treating patients in Haiti -- the
hemisphere's most HIV-ridden country -- have gotten a $2.5 million boost
from a South Florida foundation, university officials announced Friday.

Part of the money will go to training local healthcare workers in HIV and
tuberculosis treatment and prevention in Haiti, where 30,000 people died of
AIDS in 2001, twice the number of deaths in the United States.

An estimated 250,000 of Haiti's eight million people carry the AIDS virus.

The Green Family Foundation grant to the Department of Pediatrics also will
send medical teams specializing in infectious diseases to the rural town of
Thomonde, where an Operation Medishare clinic operates around the clock,
seven days a week.

The grant establishes the Green Family Foundation Initiative in Pediatric
Infectious Diseases and Immunology and International Health, which also
supports education, outreach, treatment and research in pediatric infectious
diseases in Florida.

The foundation was established by Steven Green -- former U.S. ambassador to
Singapore and former CEO of Samsonite Corporation -- and his wife, Dorothea,
in 1991.

Miami-Dade County ranks second and Broward County fifth nationally in HIV
infection rates among major U.S. metropolitan areas, according to the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

UM's pediatrics department operates the nation's largest single-site
pediatric AIDS program, treating more than 300 HIV-positive children and
screening 200 infants born to HIV-infected women annually.

Florida ranks second nationwide in pediatric AIDS cases, half of them in
South Florida, Dr. Gwendolyn Scott, who heads the medical school's Division
of Infectious Disease and Immunology, said during a news conference
featuring an all-star cast of university medical personnel, UM President
Donna Shalala and Thomonde's former mayor, Delva Jean Souverne.

His town of 45,000 residents about 50 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince,
most of whom live in shacks lacking electricity and plumbing, already has
been transformed by the Medishare clinic, he said.

Dr. Arthur Fournier -- who co-founded the Medishare program in 1995 with
Neurology Department chairman Dr. Barth Green, no relation to the Greens who
operate the foundation -- explained that Thomonde was selected as the
clinic's site because six years ago Souverne had sought one of four large
generators that had been donated to Jackson Memorial Hospital.

When Medishare personnel visited the town, they realized the ''dire need''
for healthcare, Fournier said.

Now, besides the clinic, there is an ambulance for ferrying patients to a
hospital 10 tortuous miles away over dirt roads.

Improving the area's infrastructure has been key to keeping patients in
Thomonde well, Scott said, because local healthcare workers have to
distribute and monitor medication.

Barth Green said the healthcare workers make their rounds on horseback and
motorbikes.






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