Historical Overview
In 1989, IU School of Medicine and Moi University School of Medicine in Eldoret, Kenya, joined forces to promote collegial relationships between U.S. and Kenyan medical doctors, scientists, and students; foster the values of the medical profession; and promote health and well-being in both Kenya and the United States. What drew IU to Eldoret, Kenya, was not only the need, but the vision of Moi University School of Medicine Dean, Dr. Haroun N.K. arap Mengech, who was committed to build the new school’s curriculum around broad, community-based service.
Moi University welcomed its first medical class of 40 medical students in 1990. Dr. Bob Einterz became the first in a three-decade string of IU faculty physicians to work alongside Kenyan colleagues, care for Kenyan patients, conduct health research and teach American and Kenyan medical students. By the mid-1990s, IU’s success sparked other universities to join with it in a partnership now called the AMPATH Consortium. In the early 2000s, AMPATH made a deliberate decision to take on the growing HIV epidemic in Kenya, one patient at a time. AMPATH quickly became one of Africa’s largest, most comprehensive and effective HIV/AIDS management and control systems – addressing not only HIV testing and treatment but also maternal and child health, nutrition, counseling, and helping patients regain financial stability and independence.
While AMPATH’s commitment to the HIV epidemic remains a top priority, AMPATH has been transforming its HIV care system into an integrated health care system addressing maternal, newborn, and child health as well as chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and mental health. Currently, the AMPATH-MOH system has a variety of care programs in 17 counties in western Kenya, stretching from home and village to dispensaries, health centers, county hospitals, and the tertiary care center of Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
AMPATH Kenya Today
While our commitment to the HIV epidemic remains a top priority, we’ve also expanded into care that includes chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, mental health, maternal health, child health, and more.
Today, AMPATH Kenya partners serve a population of more than 24 million people in western Kenya at 300+ clinical sites from village health centers and dispensaries to county hospitals to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital.
Medical doctors, residents, students, and scientists study and serve together, in Kenya, the United States, Canada and Sweden. And all the while, researchers, advocates and supporters work to improve health care access, insurance, policy, and more for everyone across the globe.