About RZHRG and PSF

(Note: This post is copied from the RZHRG website with only a few updates and a little editing from me. If you still have questions about RZHRG or PSF after reading this, let me know, and I'll be happy to answer them!)

About RZHRG

The principal research objectives of RZHRG are to uncover factors relating to HIV risk and transmission, to gain a better understanding of how to prevent the spread of HIV and to improve the quality of life among HIV infected African adults. To achieve these goals, the project sites in Kigali, Rwanda, and Lusaka, Ndola, and Kitwe, Zambia, operate couples’ voluntary counseling and testing (CVCT) centers where couples receive education about HIV/AIDS, pre- and post-test counseling and free testing for HIV. Couples eligible for ongoing studies are invited to participate in follow-up research and provided with free outpatient reproductive and general health care.

Until an effective HIV vaccine is found, prevention of new infections in African adults must rely on behavioral interventions. RZHRG and its many collaborators first published the beneficial impact of CVCT on risk reduction in African couples in 1991 but widespread implementation of VCT was delayed 10 years by a variety of controversies. There is now consensus that VCT is an effective prevention strategy, and that the impact of this strategy is greatest in the world’s largest risk group: African cohabiting couples.

The RZHRG same-day couples’ VCT programs were intended to be a screening tool to identify HIV discordant heterosexual couples (one partner HIV positive and the other HIV negative) for prevention, pathogenesis and vaccine evaluation research. In the process, RZHRG’s research sites in Rwanda and Zambia have accrued the largest couples’ VCT cohorts in the world. RZHRG continues to research the best ways to deliver CVCT and to provide leadership in the dissemination of best practices in VCT for couples. RZHRG’s researchers have led by example as they have developed and tested interventions and, as a result of their findings, have directly impacted public health practice. It has also been the privilege of Dr. Allen and the rest of the RZHRG team to develop collaborative relationships with colleagues from all over the world, to provide internships to more than 85 US and European trainees and to bring 19 African colleagues through Masters in Public Health degree training in the United States and England. Although the majority of the project’s research has been sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, over the years RZHRG has also been funded by a dozen other international, bilateral and non-governmental development and research organizations.

About PSF

Since 1986, Projet San Francisco (PSF) has been conducting HIV/AIDS research, as well as providing clinical care and counseling for HIV-infected persons, in Rwanda. PSF works closely with the Centre Hospitalier Kigali (CHK), the National HIV/AIDS Reference Laboratory and the Ministry of Health’s Treatment and Research on AIDS Center (TRAC) to improve clinical care available for HIV-infected persons. PSF runs three couples’ voluntary counseling and testing facilities in Kigali as well as a medical clinic, laboratory and pharmacy. The project employs over 150 Rwandan medical and support staff and 5 to 10 expatriate interns and project coordinators. With CHK and TRAC across the street from PSF, physicians from the CHK rotate every afternoon in the PSF outpatient clinic. This ensures continuity of care when hospitalization is required.

In addition to providing clinical care since 1986 for 95 long-term survivors of the project’s original HIV-positive cohort, PSF also provides HIV voluntary counseling and testing for couples, with over 17,000 couples tested, 8,000 people provided with screening for sexually transmitted infections and 940 HIV discordant couples receiving general outpatient care at the PSF clinic.