2 Nigerians receive U.S’ NIH Grant for HIV Prevention Research

Babafemi Taiwo and Juliet Iwelunmor

The United States National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Wednesday announced that it has awarded $7.5 million for an international research program to prevent and treat HIV infection among adolescents and young adults in seven African countries and Brazil.

Among the recipients are two Nigerians who have received grants to carry out HIV prevention and treatment programs across at least 4 states in Nigeria.

The study, called Prevention and Treatment through a Comprehensive Care Continuum for HIV-affected Adolescents in Resource Constrained Settings (PATC3H), will support research to develop strategies to identify youth at risk of HIV infection and those living with HIV and to enroll them into medical care programs, NIH said.

See the Nigerians who have received the grant below:

Babafemi Taiwo, MBBS, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago.
Program: Enrolling young men who have sex with men in Ibadan, Nigeria, into a program to diagnose HIV and provide treatment for those who need it.

Juliet Iwelunmor, Ph.D., Saint Louis University.
Program: Increasing HIV testing among male and female at-risk youth in 24 areas in 4 states in Nigeria and enrolling those who test positive into care.

See the other recipients and their programs below:

Pamela Kohler, Ph.D., University of Washington, Seattle.
Program: An effort to identify at-risk adolescent males and females at six HIV clinics in Western Kenya and to provide them with anti-HIV treatment, as appropriate. The researchers will also conduct a series of interviews with study participants to inform future research studies.

Sujha Subramanian, Ph.D., Research Triangle Institute, North Carolina.
Program: Offering adolescent girls and young women in Zambia regular testing for HIV and providing them with anti-HIV treatment and periodic health examinations.

Erin Meek, Ph.D., Public Health Foundation Enterprises, City of Industry, California.
Program: A social media campaign to reduce stigma toward young transwomen in four public health clinics in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil.

Diane Havlir, M.D., University of California, San Francisco.
Program: Community-based enrollments of at-risk adolescents and young adults into treatment and care in multiple clinics in rural Uganda and Kenya.

Elaine Abrams, M.D., Columbia University, New York.
Program: Enrolling at-risk male and female adolescents in Zambezia, Mozambique, into a diagnosis and care program.

Geri Donenberg, Ph.D., School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago.
Program: Testing South African adolescent girls for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and providing HIV treatment or preventive therapy, as appropriate.