GSK's commitment: Hope After HIV

In 2004, GlaxoSmithKline launched a project called "Hope After HIV: Africa." Through the Children's AIDS Fund (CAF), GlaxoSmithKline has helped open clinics in Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, and South Africa that have provided lifesaving care and treatment to more than 9,000 patients in communities devastated by HIV/AIDS.

The six sponsored clinics offer HIV tests to the community. Patients who test positive receive HIV medicines, education, mother-to-child transmission care, counseling, and follow-up. In addition to paid staff, patients are served by more than 1,500 volunteers who provide support, adherence counseling, disease education for family members, and palliative care.

GlaxoSmithKline has also established the Hope After HIV 501(c)(3) Fund, a charitable program that allows employees and others to donate funds to support life-enhancing, non-medical needs of patients receiving care at the clinics. For example, the fund has been used to:

• provide crop seeds, chickens, and pigs to improve nutrition and generate income for patients and their families
• donate a refrigerator for a new business
• buy treadle pumps to help irrigate gardens during the dry season
• pay school tuition and other education-related expenses for promising young people infected and affected by HIV
• purchase ambulance bikes that transport patients who are too sick to walk or bike to a clinic for care

For more information on Hope After HIV or to contribute, please contact the Children's AIDS Fund.