Dr. Owens Wiwa from the Centre for International Health and Professor Pierre Blanger from the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design will present their work on a mobile health clinic on World Aids Day, Wednesday December 1, from 1:00-2:00pm in Room 103 of the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design located at 230 College Street in Toronto. The project is a multi-level international collaboration between al&d (University of Toronto), Mercedes-Benz (Germany), Binz Specialty Vehicles (Germany), the Centre for International Health, and Faculties of Engineering, Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy (University of Toronto), the Munk Centre for International Studies, Mdecins Sans Frontires (Toronto), and Health Matters Inc. (Lagos, Nigeria).
Dr. Wiwa and Professor Blanger are developing the University of Toronto Mobile Clinic, a hybrid vehicle that will function as a mobile clinic for the education, diagnosis, and treatment of HIV/AIDS in West Africa. The prototype uses advanced yet low-tech medical technology such as rapid dipstick testing for the diagnosis of HIV/AIDS, with potential application for other viral infections like hepatitis and malaria.
The prototype will undergo a year-long period of testing and development, operating in urban and peri-urban areas with a team of three health care workers and the guidance of a field doctor and registered nurse specialized in urban tropical medicine from the University of Toronto and Mdecins Sans Frontires. In its first phase, the vehicle will be sent to Lagos in Nigeria, a country with one of the largest growing concentrations of HIV/AIDS population in the world.
This vehicle will serve as a prototype for the development of a larger fleet, with the potential to serve large geographical regions in parts of Africa, Asia, the Middle East and North America.
World AIDS Day is commemorated around the globe on December 1. It celebrates progress made in the battle against the epidemic and brings remaining challenges into focus. The year-long campaign aims to accelerate the global response to HIV and AIDS, prevent new infections, promote equal access to treatment, and mitigate the impact of AIDS. For more information on other U of T 2004 World AIDS Day events, visit http://intlhealth.med.utoronto.ca