The Fogarty International Center (FIC), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), today announced the funding of institutions in China, Haiti, Russia and Uganda along with partner institutions in the United States in the first four comprehensive awards of the International Clinical, Operational, and Health Services Research Training Award Program for AIDS and Tuberculosis (ICOHRTA-AIDS/TB).

FIC, with co-sponsorship from nine NIH institutes and centers, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), will commit approximately $12 million over the first five years of the program.

"AIDS is a priority for all of NIH and the Department of Health and Human Services. Fogarty's success in forging international collaborations between foreign and U.S. institutions to help train researchers in developing countries is a key part of our fight against this terrible disease," noted Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., NIH Director.

This innovative program supports collaborative and multidisciplinary research training in developing countries where AIDS and tuberculosis are taking an enormous toll on individuals, families and communities. It provides opportunities for health professionals to train at the Masters, Ph.D., and post-doctoral levels while working on research projects related to HIV/AIDS and TB that are relevant to their country's needs.

"This program will play an important role in meeting the training needs in countries struggling to gain control of the scourge of AIDS," said Sharon Hrynkow, Ph.D., FIC Acting Director, speaking on behalf of all the program sponsors. "These first four sites will provide critically needed training in the design and conduct of AIDS and TB research to scale-up promising interventions as they are brought into health care systems."

The four projects and their awardees are:

• Dr. Zunyon Wu of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Beijing, China, will collaborate with Dr. Roger Detels of the University of California, Los Angeles, to implement a research training program that addresses the HIV/AIDS epidemic in China. The project will set up an independent HIV/AIDS training center at the Chinese CDC. The center will assist other academic and research institutions in China in training health professionals and researchers to fight the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
• Dr. Jean Pape of the Groupe Haitien d'Etude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infections Opportunistes (GHESKIO) will collaborate with Dr. Warren Johnson of Cornell University to build upon HIV prevention and care services in Haiti. The project involves training a cadre of research leaders while increasing research capacity of the National HIV Care and Prevention Network. This network, made up of public and private health care organizations in Haiti, will provide a standardized package of HIV care and prevention services to 300,000 people annually.
• Dr. Andrei P. Kozlov of The Biomedical Center in St. Petersburg, Russia will work with Dr. Robert Heimer of Yale University. The team will develop a center of excellence, called the TB-AIDS Clinical Training and Research Unit, in St. Petersburg, Russia. This center will help train a new generation of medical scientists to respond to the emerging epidemics of TB and AIDS in Russia.
• Dr. Peter Mugyenyi of the Joint Clinical Research Centre in Kampala, Uganda will work with Dr. Christopher Whalen of Case Western Reserve University. The project will broaden national capacity to meet the public health and scientific challenges of the evolving HIV and TB epidemic in Uganda. Infrastructure will be developed in Uganda to translate basic and clinical research findings into public health policy and interventions and to evaluate their effectiveness.

FIC developed ICOHRTA-AIDS/TB in collaboration with NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Cancer Institute, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, Office of AIDS Research, and Office of Research on Women's Health, USAID and CDC.

The ICOHRTA-AIDS/TB complements the international research, research training, and prevention efforts of FIC and its co-sponsors. It reinforces FIC's AIDS International Training and Research Program, which has, over the past 15 years, built research capacity in the developing world by providing HIV/AIDS-related biomedical and behavioral research training to scientists and health professionals from developing countries. Also, ICOHRTA-AIDS/TB complements NIAID's Comprehensive International Program for Research on AIDS, the NIMH Collaborative HIV/STD Prevention Trial, the NICHD Partnerships Program, and the Global AIDS Program of the CDC.

FIC is the international component of the NIH. It supports and advances the NIH mission through international partnerships and addresses global health challenges through innovative and collaborative research and training programs. NIH is an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Press releases and other FIC-related materials are available at www.fic.nih.gov. FAQs are available at http://www.fic.nih.gov/news/FAQ113004.html.