Abbott’s African Info Exchange

Dr Kareem Aderogba shares his experience of volunteering in Nigeria

For more than twenty years US pharmaceutical giant Abbott has developed novel HIV medications and monitoring tests that have played a significant role in changing millions of lives around the world.

Back in 1985 Abbott developed the first HIV antibody test and according to the World Health Organisation its protease inhibitor Kaletra is the world’s most widely registered HIV drug. The tablet version, also called Aluvia in some developing countries has been filed, registered or approved in 155 countries where 95% of the world’s HIV positive population lives.

In 2002, Abbott made a commitment to HIV patients in Africa and least developed countries that Kaletra would be available at a cost of $500 per patient per year.

Building on this history, Abbott and the Abbott Fund (a private not for profit organisation set up in 1951 and funded solely by Abbott) have invested more than $100 million to advance HIV testing, treatment and support services in developing countries through Abbott’s Global AIDS Care programmes.

The latest development in Abbott’s commitment to the tackling the HIV challenge is the Peer to Peer Exchange, which facilitates doctors in resource-rich settings such as the UK to travel to less well resourced settings and deliver a range of medical training sessions to local doctors. Dr Kazeem Aderogba recounts his recent trip to Nigeria.

Normally Dr Aderogba works in Eastbourne in an HIV clinic with around 170 patients, a fifty-fifty split black Africans and white gay men. His affinity to and historical links with Nigeria made him jump at the offer from Abbott to join their Peer to Peer Exchange this Summer and help train medics across the country.

“I was really struck by how enthusiastic, keen and knowledgeable the groups we trained were. There was a lot of debate and a lot of fun.”

Starting in Abuja and then to Lagos Dr Aderogba led a series of workshops covering when to start therapy, and critical concepts like drug resistance and treatment options for people who have experienced failure on their first treatment. “Around 100 people turned up in Abuja. The organizers had invited fewer people but word had got around, so we ended up training around 85 doctors, ten pharmacists and five nurses.

He also trained smaller groups of doctors in ‘train the trainer’ sessions to help them develop their confidence in sharing the information they had just learned with others.

While in Nigeria Dr Aderogba visited two HIV clinics. “We’re talking about well-funded clinics. The size of the clinics blows you away; hundreds of patients sitting everywhere waiting for their turn. We’re talking about clinics with 10,000 registered patients and 5,000 on treatment.
“These are clinics with access to the same kinds of monitoring tests that doctors in the UK use; CD4 testing to test how the immune system is working, viral load testing to monitor the level of HIV in the blood. Other clinics outside the larger cities have access to fewer tests.

The clinics have to work within the WHO prescribing guidelines, which sets a fairly rigid standard and does not typically reflect prescribing practice in the UK

But some doctors in Lagos have access to the same medicines as doctors in the UK.

In comparison to the UK Dr Aderogba argues that “people in the developing world stay on their failing initial treatment and accumulate lots of drug resistance making it very hard for doctors to construct a new treatment combination that will work.”

“I was humbled by their dedication and their commitment to working within a very difficult environment. With some people having to rely on clinical skills alone to work out if patient’s treatment was failing. Would I do it again? Absolutely!”

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