AMREF UK

The GBCHealth Business Action on Health Awards recognised the efforts of companies to address global health needs. To be presented at GBCHealth’s 2012 Conference on 14th and 15th May at the Roosevelt Hotel, New York, the award celebrates the fantastic achievements made over the past 5 years by this integrated project which focuses on malaria, HIV/AIDS and TB project, and which is known within AMREF as MAT.

The program, based in the districts of Luwero and Kiboga in central Uganda, focuses on improving community-based prevention methods, constructing and equipping 10 clinical laboratories, and training health workers.

In Uganda, 50% of TB patients are infected with HIV and 30% of AIDS-related deaths are attributed to TB.

 It is widely acknowledged that HIV infections result in a greater risk of death from malaria and malaria infection itself leads to an increase in HIV viral load among adults and possible increased mother-to-child transmission of HIV during pregnancy.

Since the project’s inception, 6,618 local people have been trained and more than 1.5 million patient visits have occurred. In the districts covered by the project, malaria deaths in hospital declined by half between 2007 and 2011 and new TB cases dropped by 10%. New HIV diagnoses fell from 11% to 7%, with 69,730 tests now carried out per year, three times the annual figure at the start of the project.

AMREF is proud to partner AstraZeneca in this work and delighted to see the results acknowledged with this award.

Read more about AMREF's partnership with AstraZeneca.