What we do
The Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation is committed to finding solutions to stem the spread of HIV and TB and to finding more effective strategies to manage the treatment of those affected by these diseases. Our team of experienced doctors, supported by nurses, pharmacists, health workers and community counsellors conduct research into various aspects of HIV prevention and treatment. All our interventions are underpinned by rigorous monitoring and evaluation with a view to replicating successful models and, ultimately, influencing health delivery policy.
Key to our work is the involvement and participation of those who are vulnerable and most at risk of contracting HIV. These include communities in the Cape Town area where HIV and TB prevalence are particularly high, children living with HIV through mother to child transmission, young people, and marginalised groups such as men who have sex with men.
Our sites are situated in areas of extreme poverty and deprivation. In such circumstances medical intervention is insufficient to respond to the needs of patients. Counselling, health and reproductive health education, psycho-social support and training interventions are provided.
Maternal and Child Health Unit
18-09-2012Pilot project to reduce unwanted pregnancies. Despite increasing coverage and intensity of interventions to prevent the mother-to-child transmission of HIV a substantial number of new paediatric HIV infections continue to occur. Family planning interventions to prevent unintended pregnancies among HIV-infected women and men are a critical but neglected component of current programmes.
Clinical Trials Unit, Observatory, Cape Town
12-03-2013The Clinical Trials Unit conducts clinical trials in the field of HIV prevention and treatment. We have broadened our scope as an academic unit and are becoming increasingly involved in investigator initiated trials. Studies include the NIH funded START study, the Univeristy of New South Wales SECOND-LINE and ENCORE 1 studies as well as the iPrEx prevention study.
Hannan-Crusaid Treatment Centre, Gugulethu
13-03-2013This clinic is run in partnership with the Western Cape Provincial Health authorities. It provided one of the first public sector antiretroviral programmes in South Africa and by July 2011 had screened over 10,000 patients for treatment 8,690 of whom started antiretroviral treament and more than 5,000 are still in care on site.
The Sizophila Therapeutic Counsellors
13-03-2013In 1999, at the start of the antiretroviral programme at Hannan-Crusaid Treatment Centre in Gugulethu, a groupof patients wanted to give back and share with others the recovery they had experienced through ARVs. They called themselves the Sizophila Counsellors, "sizophila" means "We will survive" in isiXhosa.
