 |
Columbia University Medical Center
Maternal-newborn HIV disease has placed an undue burden upon two church-sponsored social-services programs in La Romana, D.R., a town with 213,600 inhabitants that is an important center of the sugar industry, free-zone manufacturing, and tourism. Complejo Micaeliano provides medical care and social services for many of the 8,600 legal, licensed female sex workers who work in the city's 100 centers for sexual trade; 7.5 percent of them are HIV infected. Project Compassion provides food supplements and social services to rural communities of sugar-cane workers, a high percentage of whom are Haitian migrant workers, and where maternal deaths from HIV disease are common. In collaboration with two philanthropic organizations, a New York pediatric AIDS program created an initiative to assist the two La Romana programs, with the goals of prevention of mother-to-child HIV transmission; improved care for HIV-infected women and children; and training and education of local health-care providers. Since 1999, a local nurse, obstetrician, and coordinator have ensured continuity of medical care; visiting HIV specialists conduct clinics four to six times annually to review patient management and train health-care providers; routine medications, vitamins, prophylactic antibiotics, and dietary supplements have been provided for 95 HIV-infected women and children; and AZT ( 076 regimen) has been used for perinatal prophylaxis for 24 HIV-infected pregnant women.
Start Date
2-01-1999
Location
Dominican Republic
Department/Center
College of Physicians and Surgeons
Funding Source
Contributions
Collaborating Institutions
Harlem Hospital Center
Univesidad Central del Este (Dominican Republic)
Sponsor
Knights of Malta, Fundacion Mir
| |
|
|
