Last week we had the privelege of meeting Dr Perry Jansen, who runs the medical center at Partners in Hope in Malawi, Africa.  This is the medical center that we are trying to raise funds to buy them a instrument that diagnosis tuberculosis.  Right now, all the diagnosing is done manually and is difficult especially in those people with HIV/AIDS because the disease is less symptomatic.

It was simply an amazing meeting.  Dr. Jansen was very impressive in his understanding of the medical issues, political climate and spiritual needs of those coming to the clinic.  They have many programs underway including one where they send people out to villages to do HIV testing and counseling (over 10,000 tested).  Their HIV treatment is going well about 4100 patients under treatment with only a 6% mortality rate (national average in Malawi 9%).  They are added on to their free clinic 25 beds an curently have 30 patients there (kinda like the ER at Hopkins right now - people in beds in hallways probably). 

Amazingly by God's providence Dr. Jansen has been planning and branistorming with UCLA, NIH and others ways to expand the TB program.  Our gift of the TB diagnostic instrument comes at the perfect time, because it is needed to really progress the program, in some ways it is the cornerstone piece that makes it possible.  We decided to purchase the MGIT 960 (which is a refurb unit, but functionally identical and has 3x more capacity than the one we were going to get) - it may take a few more months to procure, but well worth it and less expensive.  The money we save there can be used to purchase a lab computer to track all of the patient's test data - BD is planning on donating a piece of software ($35K value - can you believe a CD costs that much) for free.  Unbeknowst to me, Dr. Jansen and team have been looking for the past several months for such a product, and providentially I found out yesterday that BD would donate it!   God is great!

To find out more, go to http://www.bp4tb.com/