GHESKIO: AIDS in Haiti and the first HIV centre in a poor country
GHESKIO: el sida en Haití y el primer centro de VIH en un país pobre
- Date
- 1982 · confidence high
- Place
- Port-au-Prince, Haiti
- Credited to
- Jean William Pape and Warren D. Johnson Jr.
- Field
- Life & health
What was discovered
Pape and Johnson founded the GHESKIO group in 1982, which described AIDS among Haitians soon after the first US cases and created the first HIV care centre in a low-income country. They showed that AIDS was spread heterosexually and could be treated in poor settings.
The name means Haitian Study Group on Kaposi's Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections. The first publications on AIDS in Haiti date from 1982-1983; the classification of 'Haitians' as a risk group was stigmatising and later revised.
What it led to
- a model for HIV treatment in resource-limited settings
- the description of heterosexual AIDS (NEJM, 1983)
- GHESKIO centres in Port-au-Prince as a WHO reference