FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 2, 2004

President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to Fund South African Public Health Television Channel

CCP's Health Communication Partnership To Help Expand "Health Channel"

BALTIMORE — President Bush's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is providing nearly $3 million to expand a free public health education channel for healthcare workers and patients in South Africa, a nation battling HIV/AIDS at epidemic levels.

The Health Channel is a satellite broadcast station created through a public-private partnership between the South African Department of Health, Sentech, and Mindset Network. The Health Communication Partnership (HCP), led by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health's Center for Communication Programs (CCP), has partnered with Mindset Network to develop content for the Health Channel and to monitor and evaluate its impact.

"The HIV/AIDS pandemic is putting the South African public healthcare system under huge strain," said Cameron Hume, the U.S. Ambassador to South Africa. "The United States government believes that this investment in health education and training will support implementation of the National Comprehensive HIV and AIDS Care, Management and Treatment Plan in South Africa. The Health Channel will provide effective support for many Government health programs."

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provided $2.7 million to HCP from Emergency Plan funding to help Mindset Network develop the Health Channel.

"The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief is the largest commitment ever by a single nation toward an international health initiative," said Frederick W. Schieck, deputy administrator of USAID. "We are delighted that Johns Hopkins University through its Health Communication Partnership agreement with USAID is pioneering South Africa's Health Channel."

The Health Channel was pilot tested in October 2003 at 56 healthcare clinics and hospitals across the country; it aims to be in all 4,000 public healthcare sites in South Africa at the end of five years. This funding will create the foundation for a sustainable, mass-scale public health intervention, tackling all major health issues.

"This financial boost will enable us to produce and broadcast significant new educational material on HIV and AIDS in a war against ignorance — a war we cannot afford to lose," said Hylton Appelbaum, chairman of the Mindset Network.

USAID is the lead U.S. government agency providing economic and humanitarian assistance to transitioning and developing countries for more than 40 years.

Mindset Network is a non-profit South African organization, which aims at the personal, social, and economic upliftment of Africans through the delivery of quality education on a mass scale. It develops, packages, and distributes effective video, multimedia and print educational content via a broadcast satellite TV network.

HCP is a global communication initiative led by Johns Hopkins' CCP in partnership with the Academy for Educational Development, Save the Children, the International HIV/AIDS Alliance, and Tulane University's School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. In addition to the five core partners, HCP works with leading Southern-based health communication organizations as well as global programming partners from the corporate sector, international media, academic institutions, and faith-based organizations.

For further information contact: Kim Martin at Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, 111 Market Place, Suite 310, Baltimore, Maryland 21202, USA. Tel: 410 659-6140; Fax: 410 659-6266 e-mail: press@jhuccp.org.