Simmons Professor Surveys HIV Prevention + Pharma in Africa
This week, the Simmons School of Management published an article on their blog about Professor, health economist, and international health care consultant Gary Gaumer’s recent visits to Liberia and Egypt.
Gaumer visited Liberia on behalf of USAID to “help design new policy to improve access to pharmaceuticals.”
He hosted a two-day “Stakeholder Workshop” for Ministry of Health leaders that addressed some major problems within Liberia’s healthcare system—namely, the lack of availability of drugs, household hoarding, cavalier “prescribing practices, corruption, and a faulty supply chain.”
The main goal of the “Stakeholder Workshop” was to calibrate various perspectives among local healthcare professionals and policymakers to “design policy options and [develop] a small pilot program,” which will hopefully launch this autumn.
The Ford and Drosos Foundation sponsored Gaumer’s trip to Cairo last month to “evaluate a new program to help prevent HIV infection in high-risk populations [and] to train and offer support for community-based HIV prevention programs.”
Egypt is unique because its HIV prevention efforts are led by the Civil Society rather than the local government.
Funding for many HIV prevention programs is almost always shaky because the affected populations of its highest risk group (intravenous drug users, female prostitutes, gay men) are more culturally stigmatized than the larger African populations suffering from tuberculosis, malaria, and hepatitis, for instance.
You can read more about Gaumer and his research at his Simmons faculty profile page here.
About the Author
Jonathan Pfeffer
Jonathan Pfeffer joined the Clear Admit and MetroMBA teams in 2015 after spending several years as an arts/culture writer, editor, and radio producer. In addition to his role as contributing writer at MetroMBA and contributing editor at Clear Admit, he is co-founder and lead producer of the Clear Admit MBA Admissions Podcast. He holds a BA in Film/Video, Ethnomusicology, and Media Studies from Oberlin College.
