Grant keeps AIDS clinic open
But funding cuts may force the clinical trial unit to close down
The only AIDS Clinical Trial Unit in Hawaii will continue operating for the next three months under a small federal grant that has extended its funding.
The National Institutes of Health has given the Hawaii AIDS Clinical Trial Unit $640,000 to continue its current trials, said Cecilia Shikuma, the program director of the Hawaii AIDS Clinical Research program at the University of Hawaii.
The money should help the clinic stay open for the next three to six months, buying time for the clinic to operate until the National Institutes of Health, which funds the unit, makes a decision on funding, and to find alternative sources of income, Shikuma said.
"We were expecting it, I guess. I'm grateful the amount is not as low as we were worried about," she said. "But it's not enough to support everything."
The clinic received about $1.6 million this year and needs about the same to operate annually. Shikuma sent in an appeal to the national organization requesting more money and is working with lawmakers in the state to secure more funding.
The UH unit is part of a national network of 34 supported by NIH and one of 11 notified Nov. 21 that funding would be cut off on Dec. 31.
"I think there's also an intent to support major epicenters of HIV nationally," she said. "I suspect that we're not going to be funded at the same level that we need to continue operations at the same way that we're used to."
Hawaii's congressional delegates, the director of the state Department of Health and Gov. Linda Lingle have all submitted letters to the NIH advocating for the reinstatement of the UH unit's funding, Shikuma said.
"I'm really delighted that we've gotten 100 percent support," she said. She continues to seek local support from state legislature.
Gary Ostrander, interim dean of the John A. Burns Medical School, said the program "provides a much-needed service to these people, and we're going to have to find the resources somewhere to take care of these people."
He added that in the study of AIDS, Hawaii's ethnically diverse population allows researchers to see how the disease progresses in people that may not be seen in a homogenous population on the mainland.
"We also understand that right now with the war effort and (Hurricane) Katrina that there are difficulties with the federal budget to be able to fund these programs," he said. "The reality is I expect to see more of this happening across the country."
The program currently receives $11 million in grants for several studies, not only the AIDS clinical trials. But loss of the clinical trials grant would affect the other interconnected studies, Shikuma said.
If the unit closes, more than 300 people at the clinic at Leahi Hospital and at Hilo and Kona clinics would lose HIV specialty care.