We are thrilled that Dr. Marie-Marcelle H. Deschamps of GHESKIO is one of four finalists for the U.S. Insitute of Peace, 2023 Women Building Peace Award.

Selected from over 150 nominations from 42 countries, Dr. Deschamps is “extraordinary…leading on the front lines.”

Read the press release here

Prince Albert II School at GHESKIO recently celebrated its 10th year, serving over 350 primary school students annually.  Despite the challenges facing Haiti, our school, also known as EPAM, has remained open for our students. 

GHESKIO, unexpectedly received a letter from the Direction de la Coopération Internationale, informing us of a partnership they created with the Charles III College of Monaco. 

The students from the college raised over 7,000 euros for GHESKIO’s school. This amount will finance almost all the educational materials requested for the school year and includes computer equipment, school supplies, and sports equipment! 

GHESKIO and our students are very grateful to Charles III College of Monaco’s students who have reached across the ocean to support our Prince Albert II School students at GHESKIO. 

This student-to-student collaboration can be replicated almost anywhere!  If your child’s school would like to participate and raise money from student to student, please contact Scott Morgan at Scott@hgha.org to learn more. 

If you wish to support our school directly, you can donate here. 

Pape is director of GHESKIO (the Haitian Study Group on Opportunistic Infection and Kaposi’s Sarcoma), an institution dedicated to the fight against HIV/AIDS. Founded in 1982 in Port-au-Prince, GHESKIO works with the Haitian government to provide health care and humanitarian support to Haiti’s most vulnerable populations. Read more

In 2021, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus established the WHO Science Council, a group of nine distinguished scientists, to work with WHO on priority issues, scientific breakthroughs and new technologies to benefit people around the world. Among those nine scientists was GHESKIO Executive Director Dr. Jean William Pape.

Dr. Pape and the other Science Council members evaluate advances in science and technology that hold great promise to improve health worldwide, especially in low- and middle-income countries. The Science Council has met twice in person (in July 2022 and June 2023) and has produced manuscripts on genomics and mRNA technology that are already influencing public health. Dr. Pape’s involvement on the Council helps him bring GHESKIO innovations to a global audience, as well as evaluate innovative approaches to better care for patients.

Despite Haiti’s long history of hardships, Haitians are undeterred in their hope for a better future. CBS Reports explores the crises facing Haiti today – and the inspiring stories of those fighting to fulfill Haiti’s promise.

View the 22-minute report, which features GHESKIO’s Dr. Marie Marcelle Deschamps, here.

On June 7, CNN’s flagship international program, Amanpour & Co., featured an interview with Dr. Jean William Pape. He shared personal insights into Haiti’s latest challenges while illustrating GHESKIO’s tremendous impact.

“I can tell you we are resilient, we are motivated, we are optimistic. So, we wake up in the morning with the idea that we could be kidnapped or killed, but we come in a convoy and leave in a convoy because we feel we are stronger when we are together.”

View the interview here.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is now the leading cause of death in Haiti, having surpassed HIV over the past decade.  Over 32% of all deaths in Haiti are due to CVD.  GHESKIO has leveraged its success in HIV and infectious disease to now similarly confront the CVD epidemic in Haiti.  The team is leading the region’s largest natural history study to provide accurate and previously unavailable estimates of prevalence and incidence of CVD risk factors and diseases and to identify modifiable poverty-related drivers of disease to then target intervention for prevention and treatment.  Over the past 5 years, GHESKIO collaborated with the Haitian College of Cardiology and the Haitian Ministry of Health to build a CVD program with 3 components: research, training and patient care.

I.   This year marks the 5th year of this program which counts the following accomplishments:

1. The set-up of a cardiovascular center at the downtown GHESKIO site with CVD laboratory assays with the ability to perform EKGs and echocardiograms, among other diagnostic procedures. The infrastructure includes a team of workers capable of evaluating patients in their homes and making referrals to the clinic as appropriate.
2. The enrollment of a cohort of 3,000 patients being followed carefully for incident events: this is the only such cohort in the region of Latin America
3. Eight research and training programs resulted in the first reliable estimates of CVD in Haiti and the larger region.
4. Over 30 publications.
5. A national conference with international experts led to the development of national guidelines for the treatment of hypertension, the major risk factor in Haiti.

II.   New priority areas are now in interventions:

1. To reduce lead and pollution associated with hypertension
2. Improve Hypertension and blood pressure control
3. Understand how to diagnose and prevent heart failure in pregnancy,
4. Understand how to change CVD risk behaviors in a setting of slum poverty and constant stress,
5. Development of national guidelines for heart failure in collaboration with the Haitian College of Cardiology and the Ministry of Health

GHESKIO is pleased to announce that the primary school at GHESKIO Centres has launched an e-learning program for students and families. Given the violence and civil disorder in Haiti currently, this distance learning will enable students and teachers the ability to continue their education through tablet computers connected to the internet. This is a testament to the ability of GHESKIO to pivot to meet the needs of the community no matter what the circumstance. Children will learn the school curriculum via distance learning as well as learn computer skills and play educational games that reinforce learning. Both students and teachers are thrilled to be able to continue their education! Special thanks to the Haitian Global Health Alliance and the Meriuex Foundation for their support of this initiative.

In spite of a very difficult year,  GHESKIO kept its doors open while still conducting research. GHESKIO published 31 papers while providing treatment and care at our two centers, set up community centers, and continued staff training; all while tackling the resurgence of cholera and other challenges.

You can download and read the list of publications here

Dr. Deschamps, co-founder and Deputy Director of GHESKIO, was recently profiled in the Haitian Times.

“For everyone who knows and works with Deschamps, a Port-au-Prince-based doctor specializing in infectious disease, they said she is a pioneering figure in working to improve life in Haiti, including issues not just limited to the medical space. Through her pioneering work as the Deputy Director of GHESKIO, she started her career looking at the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweeping the country in the early 1980s.”

“For everyone who knows and works with Deschamps, a Port-au-Prince-based doctor specializing in infectious disease, they said she is a pioneering figure in working to improve life in Haiti, including issues not just limited to the medical space. Through her pioneering work as the Deputy Director of GHESKIO, she started her career looking at the HIV/AIDS epidemic sweeping the country in the early 1980s.”

With her optimistic outlook and determination, Dr. Deschamps said “If there is darkness, we have to look for light and if there is sorrow, we have to bring joy. I’m going to stay here and fight.”

You can read the entire article at www.haitiantimes.com

Dr. Jean “Bill” Pape presented the award to Dr. Warren Johnson, “It is with immense joy that I am celebrating with you Warren’s 60 years of service to Weill Cornell and 40 years of dedication to GHESKIO Centers in Haiti, the institution we created together and built under his careful and continued guidance.”

Dr. Warren Johnson had been a mentor to Dr. Pape in medical school and, in 1979, began working with the GHESKIO team on understanding the etiology of infantile diarrhea. Introducing oral rehydration therapy decreased infantile deaths by two-thirds.

This began Dr. Johnsons’s 40-year mentoring and collaboration with GHESKIO in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Dr. Johnson has been one of the authors of over 100 journal articles with GHESKIO, including the seminal “Outcomes after antiretroviral therapy during the expansion of HIV services in Haiti” and the first description in a developing country (NEJM) of what would later turn out to be AIDS.

Starting with two people in 1979 (Dr. Pape and Dr. Johnson) Dr. Johnsons’s contribution to GHESKIO and the people of Haiti over the past 40 years is immeasurable.