The Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital (BIPAI) recently announced its partnership with Chevron and the global health nonprofit AmeriCares by accepting a grant to address the gap in health care resources in Romania.
AmeriCares has been providing lifesaving anti-retroviral medications, anti-infectives and nutritional supplements to families receiving care at BIPAI’s Romanian NGO affiliate, the Baylor College of Medicine Black Sea Foundation, since 2004. Now, Chevron Romania has made a multi-year commitment to increase the availability of medications and medical supplies at selected public and private hospitals in Romania through AmeriCares and the Baylor College of Medicine Black Sea Foundation.
According to Michael Mizwa, chief operating officer of BIPAI, the partnership will provide support for our global health initiatives, specifically for care, treatment and capacity building in Romania. Funds will be allotted to help bolster our inventory of medical and pharmaceutical supplies to specific hospitals and clinics serving disenfranchised populations in Romania.
Since being founded in 1996 by Dr. Mark W. Kline, BIPAI has grown into a network of state-of-the-art clinical centers in Romania and across southern and East Africa. BIPAI-affiliated organizations provide care and treatment to more than 180,000 HIV-infected children and their family members, which is believed to be more than any other program in the world. BIPAI is now part of Texas Children’s overall global health initiative, which includes the largest collection of pediatricians and pediatric specialists in the world.
With the new Chevron partnership, BIPAI and AmeriCares will expand the donation of medication and medical supplies to a network of qualified health care institutions across Romania, by increasing BIPAI-Romania’s capacity to manage larger quantities of donations on behalf of its own clinical center as well as additional health care institutions with identified resource needs throughout Romania.
“Our partnership with Chevron will take our humanitarian partnership to a higher level of expanded outreach across Romania,” said Tammy Allen, director of AmeriCares programs in Asia and Eurasia.
To date, AmeriCares has supported BIPAI-Romania’s health care programs with gift-in-kind donations valued at $41 million.