A recently announced $22.5 million grant from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief will allow Baylor College of Medicine's Pediatric AIDS Initiative (PAI) to expand to a seventh African country. With the funding, Baylor will build two centers and satellite clinic facilities in Tanzania.

"Tanzania is an ideal setting for this new program," said Dr. Mark Kline, a professor of pediatrics and the president of PAI. "There is a huge unmet need for HIV/AIDS treatment, especially among children."

Kline said the initiative aims to provide HIV/AIDS treatment to at least 20,000 Tanzanian children, as well as train hundreds of health professionals in the East African nation. The centers are scheduled to open in December 2009 in Mbeya and Mwanza, though Baylor and doctors at Texas Children's Hospital are working with Tanzanian colleagues to begin staffing clinical activities in the two cities by next month. Some $6 million in private funding will also support the program.

Currently, Baylor operates clinics in Botswana, Swaziland, Lesotho, Malawi, and Burkina Faso. It is also opening a center in Uganda next month. Baylor began construction on a center in Kenya in 2007, but that plan was shelved due to post-election violence and a reorganization of Kenya's health ministry. A spokesperson for PAI said Baylor would revisit opening a Kenyan center if a new agreement is established and the safety of staffers can be ensured.

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