Updates

2020

Michael B. Mizwa is named Chief Executive Officer of BIPAI. Mizwa also serves as Director of Global Health at Texas Children’s Hospital.

2019

BIPAI celebrates 20 years of providing life-saving care, treatment and health professional training in resource-limited settings around the world.

2017

Baylor Foundation Malawi, Texas Children’s Global Women’s Health program and the government of Malawi dedicate four obstetric surgical theatres at Area 25 Health Centre in Lilongwe, Malawi to provide safe cesarean deliveries.

2016

Salud y Autosuficiencia Indígenas en La Guajira (SAIL)- a Fundación Baylor Colombia program to improve health outcomes in La Guajira, Colombia - wins first place in the National Nutrition Awards sponsored by the Exitó Foundation in the category of Advancing Maternal-Child Nutrition in the First 1,000 Days. The award ceremony was presided over by First Lady of Colombia María Clemencia Rodríguez de Santos.

USAID awards a $69.8 million grant to Baylor Foundation Malawi to support and expand HIV/AIDS programs in Southern Africa through a dynamic and innovative project called Technical Support to PEPFAR Programs in the Southern Africa Region, or TSP.

BIPAI expands in Latin America with the establishment of the Fundación Baylor Argentina in the state of Neuquén with an aim to decrease child and maternal morbidity and mortality in partnership with Chevron.

2015

Texas Children’s Tuberculosis Centre of Excellence opens in Eswatini. The TB Centre is uniquely designed for children with a child-friendly space and advanced laboratory and X-ray equipment that allows doctors to diagnose TB in one day rather than traditional approaches that take up to six weeks. It is located on the campus of the Baylor Foundation Eswatini and is a partnership between Baylor Foundation Eswatini, Texas Children’s Hospital and the government of Eswatini.

On World AIDS Day 2015, physicians, staff and patients of the Baylor Foundation Lesotho celebrate the progress and promise that marks 10 years since the clinic opened. Queen ‘Masenate Mohato Seeiso attended and gave the keynote address.

On World Hepatitis Day 2015, Fundatia Baylor Romania and AbbVie Foundation join forces to address the urgent need for increased Hepatitis C awareness, prevention, treatment and care services in Romania – the European country with the highest prevalence of the disease.

2014

BIPAI establishes its first program in Latin America, the Fundación Baylor Colombia, to reduce child and maternal morbidity rates in the the remote state of La Guajira.

Botswana-Baylor celebrates its 10th anniversary and the official opening of the Baylor - Bristol-Myers Squibb Phatsimong (“place to shine”) Adolescent Centre in Gaborone, Botswana in order to meet the needs of its growing adolescent population.

Fundatia Baylor Romania secures a multi-year commitment from Chevron Romania and AmeriCares to increase the availability of medications and medical supplies at selected public and private hospitals in Romania.

Collaborative African Genomics Network (CAfGeN) launches in Botswana and Uganda. This $3.6 million, three-year grant from the National Institutes of Health enables researchers to study the genetic factors that affect the progression of tuberculosis and HIV in one of the largest populations infected with the diseases yet to be studied - children in sub-Saharan Africa.

2013

Baylor Foundation Malawi, Texas Children’s Global Women’s Health program, government of Malawi, University of Malawi College of Medicine and other international partners implement the country’s first Obstetrics & Gynecology Residency Training program at Kamuzu Central Hospital.

BIPAI begins providing specialized pediatric and public health training at the University of Papua New Guinea.

Baylor Foundation Lesotho expands clinical and educational efforts to reach the most remote villages of Lesotho with the opening of two new satellite clinical centers in the country in Botha Bothe and Mokhotlong.

Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf meets with Texas Children's Global Health Corps physicians Dr. Yvonne Butler and Dr. Josephine Reece, who will work for approximately one year under a partnership between Chevron, Texas Children’s Hospital and BIPAI with John F. Kennedy Medical Center in Liberia. Drs. Butler and Reece will provide care to thousands of mothers and children while training hundreds of health care professionals.

2011

In partnership with Texas Children’s Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine launches the National School of Tropical Medicine (NSTM).  NSTM is one of the first of its kind in North America devoted to the Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) that disproportionately afflict "the bottom billion," the world's poorest people who live below the World Bank poverty level. NSTM provides training programs to allow a new cadre of health professionals to conduct innovative, fundamental, translational and clinical research in the field of tropical medicine. Complementing this educational capacity building for tropical diseases, the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development is launched to develop sustainable and cost-effective vaccines for preventable diseases caused by widespread NTDs.

The Pediatric AIDS Corps becomes the Texas Children’s Global Health Corps (GHC) to cover both a broad spectrum of health needs and wide geographic span. The program has successfully placed more than 200 highly-trained physicians in partner countries with a focus on pediatrics, family medicine, obstetrics/gynecology and pediatric surgery. Texas Children’s expands the Global Health Corps in Angola with a focus on sickle cell disease screening and treatment.

First Lady Michelle Obama visits the Botswana Baylor Trust Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence in Gaborone as part of a week-long trip to Africa to promote youth leadership, education, health and wellness, with special emphasis on AIDS prevention. Obama also visits the Botswana Baylor Trust Adolescent Centre, which was established to teach leadership among teens and encourage young people to teach others HIV/AIDS education. She paints a panoramic mural at the center with scenes of children playing, homes, blue sky and African wildlife.

The BIPAI Teen Club programs in Africa are cited by UNICEF as a best practice for providing the extra social support to HIV-infected adolescents patients in “Children and AIDS: Fifth Stocktaking Report 2010.”

Two additional satellite centres of excellence open in Eswatini to expand the provision of family-centered HIV/AIDS care, treatment and prevention to rural populations in Manzini and Hlatikulu.

The Network expands into two new Centres of Excellence in Tanzania at Mbeya Referral Hospital in Mbeya and Bugando Medical Centre in Mwanza, Tanzania.

2008

The largest Centre of Excellence in the Network opens in Kampala, Uganda with support from Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation.

Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine become the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Centre for Perinatal-Neonatal Health with a mandate to strengthen maternal child health in the Americas. Through this partnership, Texas Children's and Baylor worked in partnership with governments in 10 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean to build health professional capacity through education and training, implementation of best practices for care and treatment of children in resource-limited settings, roll-out of quality improvement initiatives, and the creation of unique and highly effective partnerships.

2006

The Network expands further in Africa, opening Centres of Excellence in Mbabane, Eswatini with support from Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation and Lilongwe, Malawi with support from Abbot Fund (now AbbVie).

2005

Texas Children's Hospital, Baylor College of Medicine, and BIPAI launch the Pediatric AIDS Corps (PAC), modeled after the U.S. Peace Corps, and designed to scale-up care and treatment for children and families affected by HIV/AIDS.

BIPAI expands in Africa, opening a Centre of Excellence in Maseru, Lesotho with support from Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation.

2003

Botswana Baylor Trust and BIPAI open a Centre of Excellence in Gaborone, Botswana with support from Bristol-Myers Squibb’s Secure the Future program. It is Africa’s first-ever stand-alone pediatric AIDS clinic.

2001

Fundatia Baylor Romania and BIPAI open the first Children’s Clinical Center of Excellence in Constanţa, Romania. By providing these children with access to care and treatment, mortality rates among children reduced dramatically.

The first edition of the BIPAI HIV Nursing Curriculum is published. Written specifically for nurses, soon health professionals of all kinds were seeking and benefiting from the information. The subsequent three editions, HIV Curriculum for the Health Professional, were updated to provide nurses, physicians, social workers, counselors, home-care workers and students with the information they need to understand HIV and to offer the highest standard of compassionate care for HIV-infected patients. More than 50,000 copies of the publication were distributed in 51 countries.

2000

BIPAI begins work in Botswana. In a small, repurposed storage closet, children in sub-Saharan Africa receive HIV treatment for the first time.

BIPAI becomes one of 29 AIDS International Training and Research Programs (AITRPs) nationally. The AITRP began in 1988 as one of the first of a new generation of research training programs sponsored by the Fogarty International Center of the United States National Institutes of Health. The primary goal of the AITRP was to build multi-disciplinary biomedical, behavioral and social science research capacity for the prevention, care and treatment of HIV/AIDS and HIV-related conditions for those adults and children affected by HIV/AIDS in collaborating countries. The AITRP supported long-term (2-3 years) postdoctoral training in HIV/AIDS research at Baylor College of Medicine for health-professionals from collaborating countries.

1999

The Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI) establishes a pediatric HIV clinic in Constanţa, Romania at the Infectious Diseases Hospital.

1996

Texas Children's Hospital and Baylor College of Medicine launch Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital (BIPAI) with a goal of improving the health and lives of HIV-infected children and families globally through expanded access to HIV/AIDS care and treatment, capacity building, health professional education and training and clinical research.