RHSP Objectives
The Rakai Health Sciences Program (RHSP) was established in 1987 as a collaboration between researchers at Makerere, Columbia and John Hopkins Universities, the Division of Intramural Research at the National Institutes of Allergy & Infectious diseases and the International Centre for Excellence Research (ICER). This was as a result of the first identification of clinical AIDS in Rakai district Uganda in 1982 by Drs. Sewankambo and Serwadda. The initiation of the Program, then known as Rakai Project led to a series of clinical studies characterizing the disease and its epidemiology; and also brought the partnership with other colleagues including Professor Maria Wawer and Prof Ronald Gray. The program undertakes a number of activities namely;
- District Led Programming (DLP)
- HIV Care & Treatment
- Adult Care and Treatment
- Determined Resilient Empowered AIDS-free Mentored and Safe women (DREAMS)
- "Other Prevention” services
- Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission of HIV (PMTCT)
- Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC)
- Counselling
- Health Education
Scope of Research Activities
Research activities undertaken by RHSP include: the Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS), Laboratory work, Clinical as well as Immunological Studies.
Publications & Projects
Partners
Local Partners
- Government of Uganda
- Uganda Virus Research Institute (UVRI)
International Partners
- University of Oxford, UK
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK
- Cornell University, USA
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
- National Institutes of Health (NIH)
- Determined Resilient Empowered AIDS-free Mentored and Safe women (DREAMS)
- Karolinska Institutet, Sweden
- University of Toronto, Canada
- Columbia University, USA
- Johns Hopkins University, USA
- Western University, Canada