The US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) should be supported by a federally funded corps of doctors, nurses, pharmacists and laboratory technicians modelled on President Kennedy’s influential Peace Corps, according to an Institute of Medicine panel tasked to investigate the human resources needed to make PEPFAR work.
The panel, which published its report this week, recommends the establishment of a Global Health Service Corps of 150 members to be sent to the 15 PEPFAR countries for three years to train and advise national treatment programmes. The federal government would compensate for loss of earning up to $225,000 per year during their service. Up to 1,000 further health care workers could be granted fellowships of $35,000 a year to interrupt their careers and work in resource-limited settings. Newly qualified doctors, nurses and other health care workers would receive up to $25,000 in loan repayment if they volunteered to take up salaried positions on PEPFAR programmes overseas.
The programme could cost up to $140 million a year, the report’s authors say. The establishment of a mechanism to place health care professionals in developing countries has already been approved in the legislation creating the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. The Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator says that it is considering the report’s recommendations and intends to act quickly.