Training international HIV/AIDS researchers

The African nation of Zambia is ground zero in the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Statistics tell the tragic story: one in four Zambian mothers is infected with HIV; one in every six adults is living with HIV; and 710,000 children are AIDS orphans.

For a poor and underdeveloped nation like Zambia, where about two-thirds of the population lives on less than a dollar a day, assistance from other nations is the only way to fight AIDS. But Charles Wood, UNL molecular virologist and director of the Nebraska Center for Virology, is offering assistance that empowers Zambians to fight the battle themselves.

With funding from the National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Program, Wood provides programs that help Zambian researchers understand how HIV and AIDS-associated cancer viruses cause disease and train them to detect and prevent disease transmission.

Begun in 2000 and renewed by NIH with a $2.1 million award in 2006, the program brings Zambia researchers to UNL, the University of Miami and the University of Alabama at Birmingham for training and provides in-country workshops. Twenty-six Zambian fellows have completed training and returned to Zambia, where they hold research and clinical positions that directly influence their country’s AIDS research capabilities.

In 2003 Wood expanded his Fogarty training programs to China, where HIV is a growing threat and 600,000 people are infected. The virus is spreading rapidly, causing concern that China, with its high population density, might be the next locus of the HIV pandemic. Wood’s Fogarty program with Nankai University emphasizes training in advanced HIV detection and monitoring methods, clinical disease management and behavioral interventions.