Ethiopia, GHC - The Ethiopian GHC MDRTB treatment program conducted in partnership with the Ethiopian Ministry of Health, with the support of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation and the Eli Lilly MDR Partnership, has made great strides since the initial enrollment of the first cohort of nine patients in February 2009. As of June 2012, 466 patients have begun MDRTB treatment, with approximately a quarter of the patients coinfected with HIV. Most patients present in the advanced stages of the diseases, having cycled through several prior TB treatments. The program’s partners are St. Peter’s TB Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa and Gondar University Hospital in the north of country in Gondar.
Though hospitalization is required to stabilize a proportion of these very ill and advanced group of patients, outpatient treatment initiation has also begun. The vast majority of patients are treated in the ambulatory setting once stabilized, following the community-based model of care delivery learned from GHC’s many years of experience in Cambodia, adapted to the Ethiopian setting.