Bristol-Myers Squibb chairman and CEO Peter R Dolan committed to fund a second centre to care for children with HIV/AIDS in Africa. He joined Health and Human Services secretary Tommy G Thompson and a number of organizations in increasing commitments to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa. This new pledge is in addition to the $115 million Secure The Future program of Bristol-Myers Squibb in Africa.

"Our best collective efforts to date simply have not been enough to solve the AIDS crisis that has taken so many lives in Africa. Working together is the only effective way to fight this disease," said Dolan, who this week accompanied secretary Thompson on a mission to observe the impact of HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa. "Through our Secure The Future program, Bristol-Myers Squibb has funded more than 150 programs in nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including the continent's first paediatric AIDS clinic in Botswana. African children continue to succumb to the disease at alarming rates, so we are now committing to fund a second paediatric clinic."

The new clinic, whose location is, yet to be determined, will be created in partnership with Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and the government of the country in which it is sited. In addition to providing care for children, the clinic will train health care professionals in treating paediatric AIDS, and it will conduct clinical research to help this vulnerable population. The clinic will be modeled after the first such partnership, the Botswana-Baylor College of Medicine Children's Clinical Center of Excellence at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, Botswana, funded through a $6 million Secure The Future grant. The clinic opened earlier this year.

Secure The Future is a five-year program Bristol-Myers Squibb began in 1999 to support projects that help women and children affected and infected by HIV/AIDS in southern and West Africa.

Mark Kline, MD, director of the Baylor International Paediatric AIDS Initiative and chief of retrovirology at Texas Children's Hospital, said of the new Bristol-Myers Squibb commitment, "We are very pleased to enter into another collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb to address the principal health care needs of the region. The Botswana center opened on June 20 and already has treated more than 1,000 children and 200 families. It is clear that the patients and their families are 'speaking with their feet' in using this vital new service. Already we are testing more than 30 children per day for HIV. This next centre will, I believe, change the course of HIV treatment in Africa, as we know it today. By further linking health professionals in Africa and the US, we will help to demystify this disease while transforming the delivery of AIDS care in this region of the world."

John L McGoldrick, Bristol-Myers Squibb executive vice president with responsibility for Secure The Future, said, "This new centre will combine high quality patient care with much needed training of health care professionals in paediatric AIDS. Building on the success of our centre in Botswana, it will provide the proper infrastructure for medical support and monitoring."

Dolan congratulated secretary Thompson for his leadership in bringing together the largest-ever delegation of public and private US leaders to assess HIV/AIDS efforts and needs in Africa. "We at Bristol-Myers Squibb applaud secretary Thompson and the Bush Administration on their response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa. Only through collaboration at all levels-industry, government and local community can we hope to overcome this crisis. Secretary Thompson's mission has taken us a vital step forward, serving as the catalyst for an important new round of initiatives in fighting the HIV/AIDS pandemic."