Alliance wins research funding in £3.75 million DFID consortium

22 June 2006

The International HIV/AIDS Alliance has won significant research funding over the next five years to strengthen existing knowledge on how to design and operate HIV treatment and care programmes in different resource poor settings, as part of a UK Department for International Development research programme consortium led by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).

Despite more funding being available to increase access to HIV treatment and care globally, there is still limited evidence on the best and quickest way to bring anti-retroviral treatment to those that need it most. Evidence is also limited on how to ensure that health systems are strengthened as part of scaling up treatment and care services, and on the best models and delivery systems to ensure safe and sustainable HIV treatment within a comprehensive response which includes prevention, anti-retroviral treatment, care and support.

To address this, the research will fall under three themes:

  • What package of treatment and care services should be provided in different settings and what delivery systems should be used?
  • How should HIV and AIDS treatment and care services be integrated into other health and social systems?
  • How can new knowledge be rapidly translated into improved policy and programming?

The Alliance will bring its strong community and policy expertise to the consortium and will be able to strengthen and further develop its research programmes in India and Zambia. It will also be able to develop new research with its partner institutions.

Dr Ade Fakoya, head of the care and impact mitigation team, is the principle investigator for the programme at the Alliance and sits on the research programme consortium steering committee. “This is a very important development for the Alliance. The community has a great deal to contribute to scaling up and we need to provide the evidence base which supports many of the things that we are doing successfully in our technical, programmatic and policy work.

“There is already a significant level of research expertise at the Alliance secretariat and in our country partners. This will further strengthen that expertise and provide excellent collaborations with leading national and global research institutions.”

The DFID research programme consortium called ‘Evidence for action’ consists of seven partners, three northern and four southern research institutions. They are:

  • the International HIV/AIDS Alliance;
  • the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine;
  • University College London and the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Trials unit;
  • the MRC Uganda, Vaccine and Research Institute (UVRI), Entebbe;
  • the Zambian AIDS-related Tuberculosis Project (ZAMBART) in Lusaka;
  • the National AIDS Research Institute (NARI), Pune, India; and
  • the Lighthouse Project in Lilongwe, Malawi.