Mailman School’s ICAP Achieves Important Milestone—Helping More Than 1 Million People to Access HIV Treatment

After a decade of ICAP’s working in partnership with governmental, nongovernmental, and community-based organizations around the world, with support from PEPFAR and other funders, more than 1 million persons living with HIV have received life-saving antiretroviral treatment through ICAP-supported programs. This milestone is an important step on the path to confronting the global HIV epidemic.

Since beginning its first multi-country HIV treatment initiative in 2003, Columbia Mailman School’s ICAP has grown to support more than 3,380 sites across sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia. In the past year alone, ICAP expanded support to 320 additional health facilities, with the most substantial increases in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Cote d’Ivoire.

ICAP has leveraged HIV programming to strengthen health systems; it also has supported training for more than 175,000 health care providers, as well as investment in infrastructure, including the expansion of laboratory support systems. In just over three years, for example, ICAP has supported the education of more than 9,000 nursing students through the Nurse Education Partnership Initiative

Through these investments, more than 2 million people have received HIV care through ICAP-supported programs and more than 11 million have learned their status. This work takes place every day in communities, health clinics, and large government hospitals.

Progress to expand access to HIV treatment has been accelerated dramatically with the support of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and other funders. PEPFAR alone is supporting access to treatment for more than 6 million women, men, and children. Today, ICAP programs are involved in the care of 1 of every 6 of these PEPFAR-supported patients.

“This is an enormous achievement,” said Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, director of ICAP. “It reflects the hard work by the people on the ground—by committed governments, by devoted community organizations—ass well as the engagement of the communities themselves,” she said.

Link to article on ICAP website