Partnership Helps Botswana Fight AIDS
An Elsevier Foundation Grant Jump-Started a Partnership Between the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Botswana
In 2002, a quarter of Botswanaʼs population had HIV/AIDS, the second highest rate in the world. Today, a stable government committed to stopping the spread of the AIDS is offering hope.
The Botswana-UPenn Partnership, between the University of Pennsylvania and the
University of Botswana, is ramping up to play a critical role in confronting this and other health issues. It may even lead to decreased numbers of HIV and AIDS victims as Botswana shifts from focusing solely on treating patients with this debilitating disease to an aggressive prevention campaign.
To develop this initiative, the University of Pennsylvania library received a $40,000 Elsevier Foundation grant from the Innovative Libraries in Developing Countries program in 2007. Intended to fund an assessment of the medical information needs of Botswana, the partnershipʼs reach has proven much broader. In June 2008, four senior Penn Libraries staff members traveled to Gaborone to conduct a medical information needs assessment. The grant "jump-started" the partnership, according to Anne Seymour, Director of the Health Sciences Library at UPenn. She led the team, which includes not only the library but the newly founded medical school, the Presidentʼs Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, the UPenn-run Centers for AIDS Research funded by the National Institutes of Health, and many other joint research projects.
Shira Tabachnikoff, Director of Corporate Relations at Elsevier, met with the team at UPenn this summer and was impressed by their drive to improve the way medical information is shared: "This was an incredibly motivated team that obviously enjoyed getting deeper insights into the culture of Botswana and the challenges that healthcare workers face," she said. "They put a lot of time and energy into getting this project off the ground, and they were thrilled with Elsevierʼs support. It was uplifting for me to see the impact weʼre having."
The UPenn team interviewed more than 30 people – including government officials, librarians, researchers and clinicians – to gain an in-depth understanding of how Botswana could realign its priorities and improve channels for sharing medical information, including the newly established medical school. Practicing evidence-based medicine and research requires access to current literature and data at the point-of-care. One of the teamʼs key discoveries was about how the delivery of clinical and medical reference information, continuing education and research data is drastically affected by issues as basic as regular power outages, voltage drops, lack of Internet access and computer availability.
As a result, many of the teamʼs recommendations focused on improving the University of Botswanaʼs infrastructure with better access to e-resources, video-conferencing and authentication systems and on the use of cell phones – ubiquitous in Botswana – as tools to help clinicians in rural areas. A pilot program launched by Dr. Carrie Kovarik, Assistant Professor of Dermatology and Infectious Diseases at UPenn, uses photos and cell phone applications to identify dermatological diseases and treatment in rural Botswana, which could lead to new methods of medical collaboration in developing countries.
