Initiated in October 2009 with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the GHD Project is undertaking a groundbreaking research on strategies and implementations of large-scale HIV prevention programs with the goal of developing and disseminating a strategic framework for scaling up the delivery of HIV prevention that can be applied to other public health efforts. Preliminary findings will be released at a live peer-review session in July, 2010 with experts and stakeholders from around the world. Be sure to subscribe to the GHD Blog to receive email updates on this session!

Among the five in-country programs being investigated is Avahan, a Gates-funded large-scale HIV prevention initiative in India, which is currently being transitioned to the government. The GHD research team is notably analyzing Avahan’s strategy of rapid roll-out and the effectiveness of the program in the country’s context.

While all diseases make unique demands on health delivery systems, HIV/AIDS has emerged as a particularly formidable challenge over the past few decades. Though effective interventions are well documented, prevention of the disease has proven to be multifaceted and complex. Aggressive prevention efforts are essential for curbing the epidemic – especially in countries like India, where approximately 2.5 million people are infected with HIV and nearly twice that number are at risk. Worldwide, as one patient initiates treatment, an additional six individuals contract HIV. In India as elsewhere, the failure to develop broad-based and effective prevention strategies threatens to exacerbate the epidemic significantly and to undermine even the most effective treatment approaches.

Project objectives

• Developing a novel framework accompanied by recommendations for scaling up HIV prevention programs.
• Developing six teaching cases (including two on Avahan) on large-scale public health programs to be made widely available to educational institutions worldwide.
• Publishing framework, research conclusions and recommendations

Developing a Strategic Framework for Scaling Up the Delivery of HIV Prevention (Overview – PDF)

Articles of note: What has the Gates Foundation done for global health? and The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s grant-making programme for global health, The Lancet,  Volume 373, Issue 9675, 9 May 2009 (Free full text access for registered users)