“We often measure things in numbers: '70,000 people on antiretroviral drugs.' But numbers never tell the real story here, because it isn't one story of 70,000 people. It's 70,000 different stories — individual stories, remarkable stories of mothers able to care for children, fathers able to work, infants able to live and grow."       

           -- CIDRZ Director Dr. Jeffrey Stringer  

      

The numbers only begin to describe AIDS' toll in the Zambia: thousands of funerals each week; tens of thousands of people unable to work or care for their families, and an average lifespan that has fallen from more than 55 years to less than 40.

 

Since 1999, the hopelessness of AIDS has been challenged by hope rising from CIDRZ. That year, three Zambian physicians – Drs. Moses Sinkala, Kasonde Mwinga and Isaac Zulu – completed their graduate training at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and agreed to co-found the Centre with UAB faculty including Dr. Jeffrey Stringer, now CIDRZ director.

 

“The original idea,” says Dr. Stringer, “was to create a center in Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, from which UAB and Zambian investigators could conduct research and training, working in close collaboration with the existing government health system. Dr. Sinkala convinced us all that putting research activities in the primary care facilities would pay benefits to both researchers and the clinic patients — and he was right.”

 

Within two years, CIDRZ was internationally renowned for its work; its original budget of less than $200,000 had swelled to more than 10 times that. Clinical trials were underway, a laboratory was built, and CIDRZ was soon operating one of the largest programs to prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission in the developing world.

 

In 2003, at the urging of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, the United States funded a new, $15-billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Zambia was selected to be among the initiative’s 15 “focus countries,” and CIDRZ among the early grantees. CIDRZ’s roots in research and training, and its unique expertise in clinical medicine, information technology, and community outreach provided the ideal vehicle for rapid expansion of AIDS care services in Zambia.

 

CIDRZ was the first PEPFAR-funded group to enroll 1,000 patients on antiretroviral therapy (in July 2004.  By the end of 2007, CIDRZ expects to have 78,000 adults and children enrolled in antiretroviral therapy — a pace and effectiveness unrivaled anywhere.

 

CIDRZ's rapid growth bred hope — but also, organizational chaos and inefficiency. Nowhere is that more apparent than in CIDRZ’s facilities. Critical functions, from IT to clinical care, are spread over four different buildings, none adequate to their task.  Space for training, conferences and planning sessions must be rented from costly hotels.  Staff leaders and managers are removed from those with whom they must work.  Where one IT system would do, CIDRZ needs four. Such inefficiencies carry steep costs.

 

In the past two years CIDRZ has moved aggressively to consolidate its growth into a strong, flexible organization.  It gained a new charter (Non-Profit Company Limited by Guarantee) in Zambia and was granted 501(c)3 charitable status in the United States as the CIDRZ Foundation.  It built a board-level partnership with UAB while creating a distinguished international Board of Directors.  It built structures for finance and accounting, human resources and decision making.  Having consolidated governance, leadership, finance and law, CIDRZ now must organize itself physically onto a single campus.

In pursuit of that goal, CIDRZ supporters in the United States and Africa have launched ZAMBIA FIRST with a campaign leadership cabinet of notables and friends:

 

CAMPAIGN CABINET

 

MARY DAVIS FISHER — artist, author, activist, public speaker, and Special Representative of The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS); Campaign Cabinet Chair

A. JAMES HEYNEN — Chief Operating Officer, Greystone Global LLC; Campaign Coordinator, United States

IRIS MWANZA, PhD — Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer, CIDRZ; Campaign Coordinator, Zambia

 

 

GIOVANNA BRENNAN — Veteran of U.S. State Department, posted to Zambia 2001-2005 with husband Ambassador Martin Brennan

NANCY LIEBERMAN — ESPN sports analyst, Olympic silver medalist, Basketball Hall of Fame inductee, coach and author

GROESBECK PARHAM, MD — Founder, Friends of Africa, a group supporting cervical cancer treatment and prevention for dispossessed women; professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, UAB School of Medicine

MICHAEL SAAG, MD — President, CIDRZ Foundation; Director, Center for AIDS Research, UAB; medical director, The Mary Fisher Clinical AIDS Research and Education (CARE) Fund

MARCELA SANDOVAL —  Chef with culinary industry experience in Zambia, China, North Korea and the United States; worked previously for Clinton Administration and Democratic National Committee

JEFFREY S.A. STRINGER, MD — Director, CIDRZ; associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology, UAB School of Medicine

 

ZAMBIA FIRST

U.S. Office:

Dale Hanson Bourke, President
The CIDRZ Foundation
5505 Connecticut Ave. NW #220
Washington, DC 20015
info@zambiafirst.org
301-652-6515