AMPATH Kenya Celebrates Successes in 2023
We often say that the AMPATH partnership is a lot like an elephant--your view of the expansive partnership depends on what side you see.
People living with HIV in western Kenya see AMPATH as a comprehensive care and prevention program, home to the largest HIV clinic on the continent.
Teen students and teachers in Eldoret, Kenya, and surrounding areas see AMPATH as a source of accurate mental health information and referral services through expanded mental health programming.
An expectant mother facing serious pregnancy complications sees AMPATH as essential to saving the life of her fragile baby at Riley Mother and Baby Hospital.
Children with sickle cell disease see AMPATH as the source of exceptional care and support.
People engaged with community groups see AMPATH as a path to improved health and wealth which are so closely tied together.
Medical students and residents see AMPATH as an opportunity to experience healthcare and learn from colleagues in an environment different from their own.
AMPATH is all of these things and so much more. In early 2024, we welcomed more than 300 members of our AMPATH family to the AMPATH Global Gathering in Kenya and the depth and breadth of our partnership was on full display. More than 80 care and education programs and 50 research partnerships presented during the week of networking, collaboration and learning from each other.
Leading with Care
Despite the variety of locations and program areas, the AMPATH family shares a commitment to “leading with care” and building health systems that improve care while also supporting education and research for long-term sustainability and achieving health equity.
All of these initiatives rely on the support of partners and donors like you. Your support as part of our AMPATH family moves us toward our shared vision of “a global partnership to ensure health for all.”
Here are a few highlights of our growth and successes from the past year:
The pediatric HIV clinic at MTRH and the Sally Test Child Life team celebrated the impressive viral suppression rate of 97 percent and a shared commitment to improving the health and well-being of the next generation. The three USAID-funded mechanisms: USAID AMPATH Uzima, USAID 4TheChild and USAID Dumisha Afya, collectively care for 120,000 people living with HIV and provide supportive programming for more than 110,000 orphans and vulnerable children.
After completing more than 180,000 breast and cervical cancer screenings in Kenya and linking women for follow-up care, AMPATH’s successful program is expanding in Kenya and also into Nepal and will be enhanced through the use of point-of-care breast ultrasound and testing for HPV through self-collected swabs.
Improved care for infectious diseases and antimicrobial stewardship efforts include enhancing microbiology laboratory capacity and generating reliable microbiology data, as well as implementing appropriate antimicrobial education and stewardship activities and enhancing the capacity for infection prevention.
AMPATH partners have worked together for more than a decade to improve diagnosis and care for children with common childhood cancers such as acute lymphocytic leukemia, Wilms (kidney) tumor, and Burkitt lymphoma. The team’s efforts to educate medical professionals using Project ECHO, a tele-education and mentoring platform that utilizes Zoom to bring education about healthcare topics directly to healthcare workers in widely distributed geographic locations, were highlighted at the international Project ECHO conference. Ground was also broken for The Shoe4Africa Juli Anne Perry Cancer Children’s Hospital and Harry J. Dyer Burns Hospital at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH).
Capacity for both plastic surgery and cardiothoracic surgery continued to expand through collaborations between Kenyan surgeons and surgery teams from AMPATH Consortium schools.
The AMPATH Nursing team is a collaboration between Kenyan nurses and nurses from the AMPATH Consortium to share knowledge, provide training, and support quality improvement efforts to advance nursing care in western Kenya. The collaboration will host the first AMPATH Global Nursing Scientific Conference in Kenya in May.
The University of Louisville joined the AMPATH Consortium and will focus on enhancing pediatric care in the AMPATH Ghana partnership. The Consortium, led by Indiana University, also includes Brown University, Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin, Duke University, Kaiser Permanente Bernard J. Tyson School of Medicine, Linköping University (Sweden), Mount Sinai, NYU Langone Health, Purdue University, Stanford Center for Innovation in Global Health, University of Alberta, University of California San Francisco, University of Toronto and University of Virginia.
Growing the Global Health Workforce
Together, the AMPATH Global partnerships made a commitment to grow the global health workforce during the annual Clinton Global Health Initiative meeting in September. While the focus of each site will be different based on the priorities of the Ministries of Health in each country, AMPATH commits to facilitate training for more than 20,000 providers including community health workers, nurses, social workers, pharmacists, medical and health professions students, primary care physicians and medical specialists.
This education initiative includes the continued expansion of the bidirectional exchange of students and trainees between AMPATH host sites and academic health centers that are part of the AMPATH Consortium around the world. Last year, four trainees from the University for Development Studies School of Medicine in Ghana completed rotations at NYU for the first time while 31 students and registrars (residents) from Moi University in Kenya completed rotations at AMPATH Consortium institutions in the U.S., Canada and Sweden.
The AMPATH Women in Leadership mentorship pilot program launched to strengthen the leadership capacity and capabilities of an inaugural cohort of 24 of Kenyan women leaders from AMPATH at MTRH and Moi University. The participants engaged in peer-to-peer learning and educational calls throughout 2023 that culminated in two weeks of seminars and field activities in Eldoret. Moi University School of Medicine confirmed its first female dean, Dr. Julia Songok, who was one of the first Moi University medical students to complete a rotation at IU in the mid-1990s.
Research to Inform Practice and Policy
Led by Moi University, the AMPATH Research Program celebrated the opening of a biobank at MTRH which will store and make available a variety of biological samples for researchers. The overall research program had another successful year receiving nearly $16 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and publishing 118 articles in 2023.
A highlight of funding received from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is a D43 training grant entitled “Training in HIV Implementation Science and Dissemination in Kenya (HIV-ID).” Moi University College of Health Sciences, including Moi University School of Public Health and School of Medicine, and the AMPATH Consortium led by Indiana University will partner in the 5-year initiative.
Clinical trial capacity continues to grow through the Moi University Clinical Research Centre.
Asante Sana. Thank you.
Your support nurtures this multi-faceted partnership with world-changing impact. We are so grateful and hope you will continue to dream and grow with us and all of our partners.