PIH in Peru—20 Years of Service

Breaks Ground on New Center Outside Lima to Further the Fight against Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Rebecca Rollins, Chief Communications Officer
rrollins@pih.org

(Boston, Sept. 16, 2016)—Since 1996, PIH has supported community health workers, medical practitioners, government officials and other stakeholders in Peru to build and sustain health care systems. Treating multidrug-resistant TB, one of the most serious public health threats in the world today, has been a hallmark of that work.

“We could not be more proud of the work we have done to support health care improvements in Peru over the last 20 years,” said Partners In Health CEO Dr. Gary Gottlieb, who joined PIH co-founder Ophelia Dahl, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Joia Mukherjee and Director of Mental Health Dr. Bepi Raviola, in Peru this week.

“Most notably, by drawing on our experience with community-based care, we have made great strides in confronting an epidemic of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in some of the poorest neighborhoods in Lima. We look forward to the opening of our new Center for Global Health Delivery and to supporting our Peruvian partners to do even more for those most in need in this wonderful country.”

PIH has treated more than 10,500 people with multidrug-resistant TB in Peru and achieved cure rates greater than 75 percent—some of the highest in the world. This work has inspired major changes in national and global health policies and overturned assumptions that the drug regimen for the disease is too expensive and too complicated to succeed in poor communities.

Beyond TB care, the PIH team supports a variety of services to address the health and socioeconomic needs of families living in and around Lima. For example, PIH operates 10 small clinics, or botiquines, that serve patients who lack access to primary care; visits families with young children at risk of developmental delays and teaches caregivers how to promote age-appropriate behaviors; and provides patients with food baskets, transportation, lodging, job-skills training and small loans to start businesses.

Read more about the Center for Global Health Delivery.

Learn more about PIH’s work in Peru.

________________________________________________________________

PIH in Peru—20 Years of Service

Providing Primary Care: PIH operates 10 botiquines, or small clinics, that serve patients who would otherwise have no access to primary care.

Saving Lives: PIH has treated more than 10,500 people with multidrug-resistant TB in Peru and achieved cure rates greater than 75 percent—some of the highest in the world.

Supporting New Programs: This year, PIH and its partners began treating patients in Peru under the “endTB” program, a comprehensive project with the goal of finding shorter, less toxic, and more effective treatments for multidrug-resistant TB. PIH is collaborating with the Ministry of Health to include nearly 600 patients in the program.

Leading in the Fight against TB: Completed last year, the PIH Epidemiology of Multidrug-Resistant Tuberculosis study involved 124 health centers, 4,000 patients, 20,000 contacts and hundreds of staff in Peru, making it among the world’s largest research studies on this particular disease.

Breaking Ground on What’s Next: PIH launched this week the Center for Global Health Delivery to treat more patients with TB and train health professionals.

###

Partners In Health is an international medical organization that helps build and sustain public health systems in poor and underserved communities around the world. Launched in Haiti in 1987, Partners In Health today reaches 7 million people around the world and employs 18,000 people, including 15,000 local community health workers. Learn more about our work at www.pih.org. Support our efforts at pih.org.

We go. We make house calls. We build health systems. We stay.