Click here to sign up for our mailing list to keep up-to-date with the latest Twinning Center news and activities!

View Recent Newsletters

For more information please contact: Amanda J. Gibbons Director, HIV/AIDS Twinning Center AIHA/Washington, DC Tel. 202.789.1136 agibbons@aiha.com

Addis Ababa University School of Pharmacy and the Drug Administration Control Authority of Ethiopia Join Forces with Howard University to Expand Clinical Pharmacy Education, Training, and Practice WASHINGTON, DC, July 19, 2007—The American International Health Alliance (AIHA) is pleased to announce the formation of a new partnership through its HIV/AIDS Twinning Center that will support the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) by helping to strengthen Ethiopia’s human and organizational capacity to provide quality pharmaceutical care to patients with HIV/AIDS and related diseases. Home to more than 76 million people, Ethiopia has an HIV epidemic that is focused primarily in urban areas with adult infection rates in the capital of Addis Ababa averaging around 15 percent, according to UNAIDS reports. Addis Ababa University School of Pharmacy (AAU) and the Drug Administration Control Authority of Ethiopia (DACA) are partnering with Howard University School of Pharmacy and the Pharmacists and Continuing Education (PACE) Center in Washington, DC, to enhance Ethiopia’s pre-service and in-service capacity to provide quality pharmaceutical services to patients with HIV/AIDS and related diseases. Because HIV/AIDS care is highly complex, it necessitates a more patient-centered, clinical approach to pharmacy services. This is especially true in Ethiopia and other countries faced with a shortage of healthcare professionals. With Twinning Center support, partners are training faculty and building the information resources needed to shift the existing didactic paradigm at AAU away from more traditional pharmacy studies toward clinical pharmacy education, training, and practice. Partners are also working together to establish a Drug Information Center at AAU that will serve as a replication model for other pharmacy schools throughout the country. A second Drug Information Center will be established at DACA and serve as a model for replication at Ethiopian hospitals nationwide. Funded by PEPFAR through a cooperative agreement with the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration, the HIV/AIDS Twinning Center mobilizes and coordinates the resources of US healthcare providers to effectively build capacity to reduce HIV infection rates and provide care to those infected with, or affected by, HIV/AIDS around the globe.