The OPTIMIZE project is dedicated to rapidly improving treatment outcomes for people living with HIV by optimizing antiretroviral drugs and formulations, and accelerating their introduction in low- and middle-income countries, including Kenya. (funded by USAID).

Find out more at https://optimize.icap.columbia.edu

ICAP is designing and implementing a rapid assessment of COVID-19 knowledge, attitudes and behavior among adolescents and youth living with HIV in Kisumu, Kenya (at JOOTRH) and assess changes in health services, HIV care and participants’ lives in general as a result of COVID.

Funded by a generous gift donation from Becton Dickinson.

The HIV Coverage, Quality, and Impact Network (CQUIN) is a multi-country learning network designed to accelerate the implementation of high-quality differentiated service delivery for HIV. CQUIN’s goal is to increase the number of people living with HIV initiating and sustaining highly effective HIV treatment with sustained viral suppression.

Find out more at cquin.icap.columbia.edu

ICAP is expanding its ongoing support for JOOTRH through strengthening the existing triage system with appropriate referral and care of confirmed COVID-19 cases, either in self-isolation at home or in JOOTRH’s isolation unit. ICAP is also providing education materials and locally sewn cloth masks to clients upon discharge, and has set-up a hospital hotline to provide information throughout the community.

Funded by a generous gift donation from Dr. Bing Zhao.

Find out more at https://icap.columbia.edu/leveraging-new-partnerships-icap-launches-wide-ranging-response-to-covid-19-threat-around-the-world/

ICAP is conducting formative research to inform the design and implementation of combination prevention interventions, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for female sex workers, as well as to inform recruitment and retention strategies for female sex workers and their male clients in Kenya.

Funded by the National Institutes of Health

ICAP is conducting a study to assess the feasibility, acceptability and retention in PrEP among the fisherfolk population at Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital, which ICAP supports. The study will include provision of PrEP in addition to HIV self-testing kits between study visits to confirm HIV-negative status and motivate adherence to PrEP, as well as an evidence-based risk-reduction intervention tailored to the population. Funded by the President’s Global Innovation Fund (PGIF).

ICAP is designing and implementing an innovative, high-impact training initiative targeting district health management teams and frontline health care workers. Trainings will build the competence and confidence of healthcare workers to safely identify, report and support people with COVID-19; implement effective infection prevention and control activities; and serve as trusted sources of reliable health information for communities impacted by the pandemic in Kisumu, Kenya.

Funded by Resolve to Save Lives, an initiative of the global public health organization Vital Strategies.

Find out more at https://icap.columbia.edu/leveraging-new-partnerships-icap-launches-wide-ranging-response-to-covid-19-threat-around-the-world/

The purpose of this project is to support Jaramogi Odinga Odinja Teaching and Referral Hospital (JOOTRH) to serve as a regional center of excellence that serves as a training center and e-learning hub, and provides comprehensive HIV prevention, care, and treatment services, medically-assisted therapy for people who inject drugs, and gender-based violence recovery services. 

Funded by CDC

As a sub-partner with JHPIEGO, ICAP worked to expand and strengthen HIV care and treatment facilities in Central and Eastern provinces and provided implementation support, mentorship for healthcare workers, technical assistance in HIV management, and other health systems strengthening activities. (funded by PEPFAR through USAID)

ICAP partnered with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and local organizations to support key stakeholders and health facilities to increase HIV testing and counseling, improve linkage and enrollment for HIV-positive children, increase access to quality HIV care and treatment, and improve HIV treatment outcomes among infants, children and adolescents in Machakos, Makueni, Siaya, and Kisumu counties. (funded by PEPFAR and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation).

In April 2018, ICAP facilitated a four-day workshop for HIV-positive young people aged 15-21 who regularly attend the adolescent clinic at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga Teaching and Referral Hospital. The workshop focused on the photography of people, places and things and provided participants an opportunity to explore photography as a medium for self-expression and to learn to use a digital camera.

Funded through the President’s Global Innovation Fund (PGIF).

The Global Nurse Capacity Building Program (GNCBP) was a global health initiative that was administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), under the U.S Department of Health and Human Services, with funding from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). It was implemented by ICAP at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health (ICAP) from 2009 to 2018. GNCBP’s goal was to advance the HIV response toward epidemic control and to improve population health in sub-Saharan Africa by fostering individuals, institutions, and networks to expand, enhance, and sustain the nursing and midwifery workforce.

The program used a holistic approach to strengthen nursing and midwifery education and practice through two complementary sub-projects: the Nursing Education Partnership Initiative (NEPI), which expanded the health workforce by producing new nurses and midwives; and the General Nursing (GN) project, which supported the maintenance of a skilled health workforce through continuing professional development (CPD), in support of HIV care and treatment scale up and sustainability. Together, NEPI and GN interventions increased the quantity and quality of the nursing and midwifery workforce by addressing seven domains of health workforce development: infrastructure; curriculum; faculty; clinical skills; production; in-service training; and partnership for policy and regulation.

Find the GNCBP final report here

Find out more about General Nursing

In Kenya, ICAP partnered with the Ministry of Health to:

• Supported the implementation and evaluation of an enhanced service package for HIV-infected adolescent and young pregnant and postnatal women using the group antenatal care model and additional support services at seven health facilities in Nyanza.
• Supported an evaluation on the feasibility and effectiveness of the ECHO telementoring model (Project ECH™).
• Supported the Ministry of Health to design and implement a national strategy for Test and Start service delivery, including community-based ART groups (C-BART).

Find out more on the Global TA Page

Columbia University’s role in implementing PEPFAR began in 2003, when it received funding from the Global AIDS Program of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) under the University Technical Assistance Projects (UTAP) to support the development of important components of national HIV programs, including treatment protocols and training. In 2004, ICAP was founded and was awarded a new cooperative agreement from CDC under the PEPFAR framework, the Track 1.0 funding mechanism, to provide comprehensive HIV care and treatment in five countries: Kenya, Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania, with programming in Côte d’Ivoire, Ethiopia, and Nigeria subsequently added.

This initiative, the Multicountry Columbia Antiretroviral Program (MCAP), rapidly expanded programs for HIV care and ART by promoting early diagnosis of HIV infection, maintaining the health of those living with HIV, and preventing further transmission of HIV within the community. MCAP programming between 2004 and 2012, in addition to being focused on rapidly scaling up care and treatment in partnership with host-country governments, also emphasized the full continuum of HIV-related services, continued capacity building and health systems strengthening, and transition of operations to host governments and local nongovernmental organizations.

Find the MCAP End-of-Project Reports here.

The MTCT-Plus Initiative, the world’s first multi-country HIV treatment program, aimed to demonstrate to a disbelieving world that it was possible to provide care and antiretroviral (ARV) treatment in resource-limited settings, using programs to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) as an entry point.

In December 2003, the MTCT-Plus Secretariat in New York (the precursor to ICAP, headed by ICAP’s Wafaa El-Sadr and Elaine Abrams) received its first grant from the new President’s Emergency Program For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

Four years later, the MTCT-Plus Initiative of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health was providing HIV care and treatment for nearly 17,000 people at 14 sites in nine countries. MTCT-Plus received expansion funding from USAID in 2003 and 2006. By 2010, ICAP had provided HIV care and treatment to more than one million people.

Find the MTCT-Plus and MTCT-Plus Expansion reports here.

ICAP conducted formative research with men living with HIV and health care workers who provide care to this population to better understand their perceptions of barriers and facilitators to engaging men in HIV care.  

ICAP provided technical assistance to the Ministry of Health to conduct the Kenya Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (KENPHIA) survey to assess HIV prevalence, incidence, and access to HIV prevention, care, and treatment services. The survey included household-based interviews and HIV counseling and testing for adults and children. Survey findings will be used to assess the impact of Kenya’s HIV response at the national level, and to help guide and target future investment and programs. (funded by PEPFAR through the CDC).

KENPHIA Preliminary Report

Find out more at phia.icap.columbia.edu

Through the Quality Improvement Capacity for Impact Project (QICIP), ICAP provided ministries of health and local partners with technical assistance which enabled them to monitor program performance, identify quality challenges, explore root causes, develop targeted interventions, and conduct rapid, iterative tests of change in programs supported by PEPFAR.

In Kenya, ICAP worked with the Ministry of Health and National AIDS and STIs Control Programme (NASCOP) to design and implement quality improvement collaboratives to improve the utilization of routine viral load testing results at 30 health facilities in Siaya County, and for adolescents at 22 health facilities in Eastern Province.

Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) and CDC.

Find out more on the QICIP Program Page

ICAP partnered with Kenya’s MOH at the national, regional, and county level to support and improve the response to the HIV epidemic in Kenya’s Eastern South and Nyanza regions. ICAP enhanced HIV prevention, care, and treatment efforts by expanding access to HIV services, including HIV testing, PMTCT, and voluntary medical male circumcision. ICAP initiatives increased access to ART considerably for both adults and children living with HIV, in part by expanding the capacity of Kenya’s health workers to initiate and manage HIV treatment. ICAP also strengthened the ability of Kenya’s MOH and county health management teams to collect accurate, consistent data, improve program monitoring and evaluation, and use high-quality data for continuous quality improvement. These combined efforts helped lay the foundation for reaching today’s goal of achieving epidemic control. (funded by PEPFAR through the CDC)

View the End-of-Project brief here

ICAP worked with JHPIEGO to scale up the number of HIV care and treatment facilities in Central and Eastern provinces, support the implementation of quality TB and HIV activities, provide mentorship to health care workers and introduce adherence counseling, and support health system strengthening through training and technical support in HIV management. (funded by PEPFAR through USAID)

ICAP provided technical assistance to the Centre for Health Solutions in the provision of quality HIV care and treatment services for adults and children, integrated TB/HIV activities, PMTCT, and monitoring and evaluation. (funded by PEPFAR through the CDC)

ICAP conducted this study to develop a cohort of over 600 HIV-infected adults who are initiating antiretroviral therapy (ART) in eight health facilities in Nyanza Province to establish a sample bank of plasma and urine samples in order to further the understanding of the association between inflammatory and coagulation biomarkers and HIV-related outcomes. (funded by the NIH)

The MIR4Health study is a randomized trial to compare the effectiveness of active patient follow-up to engage and retain in care newly-identified pregnant HIV-positive women and their infants as compared to the current standard of postpartum care. (funded by PEPFAR through the NIH)

In September 2002, the Mailman School of Public Health (MSPH) at Columbia University (CU) entered into a Cooperative Agreement with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for the University Technical Assistance Projects (UTAP) in Support of the Global HIV/AIDS Program. Situated within ICAP, UTAP was originally envisioned as a single-country program for the provision of technical assistance, but rapidly grew to include long-term and short-term technical and administrative assistance to the national responses to HIV/AIDS in five countries: Mozambique, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia.

As the original UTAP project drew to a close and PEPFAR moved into its second phase—focused on sustainability—ICAP entered into several, follow-on Cooperative Agreements, called UTAP-2. Four were country-focused (in Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Swaziland, and Tanzania) and the fifth—UTAP-2 Atlanta—became a flexible mechanism for providing a wide range of technical assistance and other support to PEPFAR countries. After beginning in 2009 as a means to help CDC conduct  surveillance training more efficiently through distance education, UTAP-2 Atlanta grew over the next six and a half years to comprise 11 distinct projects addressing needs and gaps in the HIV response and answering important research questions to inform the response going forward.

Find all UTAP and UTAP-2 resources here.

ICAP conducted this study to develop and follow a cohort of HIV-infected adults starting ART at health facilities across Kenya to understand the levels of inflammatory and coagulation biomarkers in clients and the effect of ART on those biomarkers.