Houston Chronicle Examines Baylor College of Medicine Doctor’s Efforts To Fight Global HIV/AIDS

The Houston Chronicle on Sunday examined a Baylor College of Medicine physician's efforts to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Dr. Mark Kline, a pediatric HIV/AIDS specialist, and colleagues at Baylor since 1996 have made a "dramatic difference" in the lives of HIV-positive children in Romania by providing antiretroviral drugs for them, the Chronicle reports. In the city of Constanta, Romania, the number of HIV-positive children hospitalized daily has dropped from 30 patients to four, and the yearly AIDS-related death rate has fallen from 20% four years ago to 3% today. Kline, who directs Baylor's International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, hopes to duplicate the success of the Romanian clinic in Gaborone, Botswana, where Baylor opened a clinic in summer 2003. The university plans to open a third clinic in Mexico City, the Chronicle reports. Pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb, which has supplied funding for the Baylor clinics, announced on Dec. 3 that it also will fund a second African clinic (Hopper, Houston Chronicle, 1/4).