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McIntire Students Help Seek HIV/AIDS Solutions for Tanzania

Facing a growing AIDS epidemic, the government of Tanzania can afford only $2 per AIDS diagnostic test. The country’s budget allows only $7.50 per person per year in total health care spending. (From UVA Today)

This January, as part of the month-long course “Financing a Sustainable Future,” a group of students from McIntire and the College traveled to Tanzania in hopes of improving that situation. The course was jointly taught by McIntire’s Professor Mark White and the U.Va. Medical Center’s Dr. Eric Houpt. The students’ aim was to figure out an economically viable way to manufacture, on site, a low-cost HIV/AIDS test developed by Houpt. Houpt, who studies infectious diseases, has done research in Tanzania for the past six years.

The students, most of whom came from McIntire, were eager to put their developing business skills to practical use, White noted. “Doing so amidst the unique challenges of a poor developing country was even more exciting,” he added.

The students had written a preliminary feasibility study of the proposed venture before departing for Tanzania. Upon their arrival, however, they encountered a string of challenges. The class found, for instance, that the Tanzanian government allows only two brands of AIDS tests to be sold in the country, so selling a new test—even one made in Tanzania—would require paying members of an “advisory board” to consider the issue and decide whether or not to allow the new test. The students also discovered that the going “salary” rates in Tanzania, on which they had based their business plan, did not include customary “honoraria” pay that roughly doubled total wages. “As we worked on the business plan, it became clear that the big picture is always bigger than what you imagine,” said Richie Roberts (McIntire ’07).

The students’ work on the business plan will be incorporated into a grant proposal currently being written by Houpt. If the proposal earns the funding necessary for the construction of the manufacturing facility, the students will have changed more than their worldview: They will have changed the lives of thousands.
 

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