Program Leaders Outline Effective Strategies for Fighting HIV/AIDS in Children in Resource-Limited Settings

Program Leaders Outline Effective Strategies for Fighting HIV/AIDS in Children in Resource-Limited Settings

August 17, 2006

    TORONTO, Aug. 17 /Xinhua-PRNewswire/ -- XVI
International AIDS Conference, Toronto, August 13-18, 2006
-- Program leaders from Bristol-Myers Squibb, New York
(NYSE: BMY), and Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, today
outlined innovative medical care, treatment and research and
social support strategies to fight HIV/AIDS among infants
and children in impoverished areas of sub-Saharan Africa. 

    Efforts include the arrival of 50 Pediatric AIDS Corps
doctors to a network of clinics treating HIV-positive
children in sub-Saharan Africa by next Monday; the opening
of a program to prevent mother-to-child-transmission of HIV
(PMTCT) through a government hospital and 15 feeder clinics
in rural Swaziland next month and the opening of two more
children's clinics in Uganda and Burkina Faso next year.

    At a briefing during the XVI International AIDS
Conference, Mark A. Wainberg, O.C., O.Q., PhD., conference
co-chair and director of McGill University AIDS Centre,
Quebec, described challenges in addressing the special
needs of children in the developing world.

    "In the last 25 years of the fight against
HIV/AIDS, we have seen many contributions by governments,
corporations and foundations to bring treatment to people
in need.  However, as we gather here today, so much more
needs to be done," said Wainberg.  "We need
innovative approaches to treat the most vulnerable
populations and also to bring access to treatment to the
world's most resource constrained locations.  SECURE THE
FUTURE(R) is a wonderful model of how both of these goals
are attainable."

    UNAIDS estimates that 2.3 million children under 15
years of age were living with HIV in 2005. Almost 90% of
the world's children living with HIV are in sub-Saharan
Africa, where fewer than 10% are being reached by basic
support services.

    An initiative of Bristol-Myers Squibb and the
Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, SECURE THE FUTURE has been
working on the ground in sub-Saharan Africa since 1999 - in
partnership with government Ministries of Health, medical
institutions, NGOs and other organizations - to create
comprehensive approaches to fight HIV/AIDS. 

    Many programs have been dedicated to creating
sustainable, replicable model programs for children,
including a network of Children's HIV/AIDS Clinical Centers
of Excellence operated by the Baylor International Pediatric
AIDS Initiative; co-funding with Baylor the Pediatric AIDS
Corps to send 250 doctors to Africa over the next five
years to treat an estimated 80,000 children and train local
health care personnel; and operating a Community-Based
Treatment Support center focused on PMTCT.

    Additional projects supporting children include
education, psychosocial care and support for orphans and
vulnerable children, training, food security and
income-generating projects for caregivers; and community
mobilizations to reduce stigma and foster testing.

    Because of the extreme burden of disease in this region
and a limited ability to pay for HIV medicines,
Bristol-Myers Squibb substantially lowered the price of its
medications to a level that delivers no profit to the
company in 2001.  In July 2005 the Company further reduced
the price of pediatric formulations to significantly below
cost to accelerate access to treatment for the millions of
children in sub-Saharan Africa. The company also pledged
that its patents would not stand in the way of inexpensive
HIV/AIDS therapy being made available in sub-Saharan
Africa.  

    "Innovative strategies will be necessary to scale
up the care and treatment of hundreds of thousands of
HIV-infected children and families across sub-Saharan
Africa.  We believe that the Children's Clinical Centers of
Excellence and Pediatric AIDS Corps will transform pediatric
and family HIV/AIDS care in some of the world's hardest hit
countries," said Mark Kline, M.D., president of the
Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, professor
of pediatrics and chief of Retrovirology, Baylor College of
Medicine. Kline announced that 50 Pediatric AIDS Corps
physicians will arrive in Africa by August 21 to begin
one-year assignments to treat children and train healthcare
professionals. They will be based at children's clinical
centers in Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Swaziland, Uganda and
Burkina Faso and serve at the centers and in nearby rural
areas as part of the $32 million SECURE THE FUTURE and
Baylor program to send up to 250 doctors to Africa through
2010. 

    Funding for construction of the centers in Botswana,
Lesotho and Swaziland was provided through Bristol-Myers
Squibb Foundation grants. Additional pediatric AIDS centers
funded by the initiative will be opened in Burkina Faso and
Uganda next year, and funds have been committed to build
another two centers.

    Sebastian Wanless, M.B., Ch.B., PhD., senior medical
director, SECURE THE FUTURE, pointed to a related effort in
Swaziland where a prevalence rate of 33.4% was reported by
UNAIDS in 2005.  "We have successfully linked a
community-based treatment support program dedicated to
preventing mother-to-child-transmission of HIV with a
pediatric HIV/AIDS clinical center to provide a coordinated
continuum of care from pre-natal testing, through delivery
to pediatric care." 

    The program begins at the Pilot Operational Research
and Community-Based Program (PORECO) established by SECURE
THE FUTURE in Mbabane, Swaziland, to provide PMTCT-Plus.
Services include a clinic providing highly active
antiretroviral treatment (HAART) when required, voluntary
counseling and testing, and social services such as home
visits, infant feeding counseling, nutrition and food
security.  This program is coordinated at the
Baylor-Bristol-Myers Squibb Children's Clinical Center of
Excellence - Swaziland, which opened in Mbabane in February
2006. 

    To further extend services aimed at reducing the new
infection rate in infants, 10 Pediatric AIDS Corps
physicians will be based at the clinical center in Mbabane
and begin serving clinics in the area next month, according
to Wanless.  The PORECO Project will be replicated beginning
next month at the Piggs Peak Government Hospital in Piggs
Peak, Swaziland, and its 15 associated clinics in the rural
northern Hhohho area.

    Bristol-Myers Squibb Company and the Bristol-Myers
Squibb Foundation have committed $150 million to the
initiative which includes medical care and research,
community outreach and education and new infrastructure.
Programs funded include public education aimed at
prevention, training for physicians and other public health
workers, home-based care strategies, interventions to aid
orphans and other vulnerable children, clinical research
and medical care.

    Bristol-Myers Squibb is a global pharmaceutical and
related health care products company whose mission is to
extend and enhance human life.

    For more information, please contact:

     Becky Taylor, Bristol-Myers Squibb
     Tel:    [phone]
     Mobile: [phone] 
     Email:  [e-mail]

     Lisa Van Dusen, McGill University
     Tel:   [phone]

    /NOTE TO EDITORS:  To arrange interviews with Dr. Mark
Kline, please contact Lori Williams at Baylor College of
Medicine. She can be reached at:
     Mobile: [phone]	
     Tel:    [phone]
     Email:  [e-mail] /	

SOURCE  Bristol-Myers Squibb