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Research Grants

NIH RO1 Research Grant: Global Health Innovations is partnering with the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) and the Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) on a 5-year, NIH-funded research grant to rigorously evaluate the HITSystem in six hospitals in Kenya. Primary outcome measures will include retention at 9 and 18 months of age, linkage to treatment among HIV+ infants, turn-around time for PCR testing and communication of results, and meeting interventions such as OI prophylaxis and PCR testing by 6 weeks of age. Our study team will also conduct cost-effectiveness analyses to determine the costs of providing HIV EID services and potential savings achieved by the HITSystem. This study will provide important data for governments considering national scale-up of the HITSystem.

NIH R34 Research Grant: GHI is partnering again with the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC) and KEMRI for a 3-year NIH-funded grant in Kenya. We are adapting the HITSystem to support PMTCT retention and adherence in Kenya. Our goal is to adapt our HITSystem to support HIV-infected pregnant women in antenatal care appointment attendance, ART medication adherence, a hospital-based delivery and early infant enrollment in early infant diagnosis services.

Publications and Abstracts

GHI’s HIV/AIDS work with mothers and their babies in Africa has been published in the most respected peer-reviewed scientific journals around the globe. We also continue to present our latest data at the leading and largest HIV/AIDS and public health conferences.

  • Evaluation of the HIV Infant Tracking System (HITSystem) to optimize quality and efficiency of early infant diagnosis: a cluster-randomised trial in Kenya. Lancet HIV. Published Online 2018 Oct.

  • Implementing eHealth Technology to Address Gaps in Early Infant Diagnosis Services: Qualitative Assessment of Kenyan Provider Experiences. JMIR Mhealth Uhealth. 2018 Aug 22;6(8):e169. doi:10.2196/mhealth.9725

  • Evaluating turnaround times for early infant diagnosis samples in Kenya from 2011-2014: A retrospective analysis of HITSystem program data. PLoS One. 2017 Aug 10;12(8):e0181005. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0181005. eCollection 2017.

  • Predictors of Infant Age at Enrollment in Early Infant Diagnosis Services in Kenya. AIDS& Behavior. 2016 Sep;20(9):2141-50. doi: 10.1007/s10461-016-1404-z.

  • Progress Toward Eliminating Mother to Child Transmission of HIV in Kenya: Review of Treatment Guidelines Uptake and Pediatric Transmission Between 2013 and 2016-A Follow Up. Maternal Child Health J. 2018 Jul 25. doi: 10.1007/s10995-018-2612-0.

  • Lessons learned from implementing the HIV infant tracking system (HITSystem): A web-based intervention to improve early infant diagnosis in Kenya. Healthcare (Amst). 2015 Dec;3(4):190-5. doi: 10.1016/j.hjdsi.2015.07.004. Epub 2015 Aug 14.

  • If you text them, they will come: using the HIV infant tracking system to improve early infant diagnosis quality and retention in Kenya. AIDS. 2014 Jul;28 Suppl 3:S313-21

    Implementation of the HITSystem was associated with more than a two-fold increase in both EID retention and initiation of ART among HIV-infected infants compared to historical controls. Furthermore, turn-around time for PCR test results significantly improved, and the time for ART initiation among HIV-infected infants was reduced from 38 to 7 median days. Notably, the HITSystem improved care in both the urban and peri-urban settings…

  • Improving early infant HIV diagnosis in Kenya: study protocol of a cluster-randomized efficacy trial of the HITSystem. Implementation Science.2015, 10:96. DOI: 10.1186/s13012-015-0284-3.

  • Progress Toward Eliminating Mother to Child Transmission of HIV in Kenya: Review of Treatment Guideline Uptake and Pediatric Transmission at Four Government Hospitals Between 2010 and 2012. AIDS & Behavior, 1-10. April, 2015.

  • Private and Public Partnership: a Model for a National HIV Early Infant Diagnosis Program in Haiti; 5th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, Cape Town, South Africa. 2009.

  • Analysis of the optimal cut-point for HIV-p24 antigen testing to diagnose HIV infection in HIV-exposed children from resource-constrained settings. Journal of Clinical Virology. 2011 Apr: 50(4):388-41.

  • Evaluation of Reverse Transcription, Loop-mediated Isothermal Amplification Assay to Detect HIV-1 in Dried Blood Spot Samples from HIV-1 Exposed Children. 18th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. 2011.

  • Improving Turn-around Time for HIV DNA PCR Lab Results for Early Infant Diagnosis in Kenya; 7th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2013.

  • Adherence to the 2010 Treatment Guidelines for the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission (PMTCT) of HIV in Kenya; 7th IAS Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2013.

  • HIV Infant Tracking System (HITSystem) in Kenya; 10th Annual Global Health & Innovation Conference, Yale University, New Haven Connecticut. 2013.