Your first visit to Africa is a full-on assault on the senses,"
says Tim Lahey, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Microbiology
& Microbiology. "The colors, the foreign voices and city noises,
and the smell of smoke and food and pollution can really blow
you away." A deeply poor country, Tanzania has only about 800
doctors for a population of over 35 million, and life expectancy
has decreased from about 55 in the mid-1990s to 43, mostly due
to HIV. Dr. Lahey regularly travels to Tanzania as part of the
multifaceted DarDar Consortium founded by C. Fordham von Reyn,
Professor of Medicine. Von Reyn's program is credited with the
discovery of the first vaccine proven to protect adults with HIV
from tuberculosis, the identification of a new "subclinical"
syndrome of tuberculosis, and the inception of a new NIH-funded
study of nutrition in HIV-infected women. Finally, in
collaboration with Professor of Pediatrics Paul Palumbo, the
program has founded a PEPFAR-funded pediatric HIV clinic that
serves several hundred