Centre of Excellence on Research in AIDS, University of Malaya, Malaysia

HIV, tuberculosis and viral hepatitis prevention and treatment in criminal justice and community health settings

Centre of Excellence on Research in AIDS (CERiA), University of Malaya

The Centre of Excellence on Research in AIDS (CERiA) and University of Malaya have ongoing relationships with a number of departments and schools within the university as well as the Malaysian government, including the Prisons Department, Ministry of Health and the Anti-Drug Agency. The site also has an ongoing relationship with the Malaysian AIDS Council, the country’s largest AIDS Service NGO that oversees the provision of HIV prevention and treatment. Dr. Altice and Dr. Kamarulzaman, the University of Malaya’s Dean of the Medical School, have collaborated continuously since 2005 on projects related to HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, and antiretroviral therapy (ART) among prisoners and sex workers.

Drs. Altice and Kamarulzaman were involved in rolling out the first methadone maintenance treatment in the country as HIV prevention. They were also the first to do criminal justice research and have been doing prison research and examining alternatives to health and rehabilitation by comparing community models of care to compulsory drug detention centers. They have conducted trials of both behavioral interventions and medication-assisted therapies for criminal justice populations transitioning from prison to the community as well as studies of tuberculosis (TB) in community and criminal justice settings. With an National Institute of Health (NIH) R01 grant, they studied the interface of HIV and TB and addiction to optimize TB testing in prisons and conducted a randomized control trial of short-term TB preventive therapy and a preference study of opioid dependent patients with TB who are transitioning to the community. Newer studies are examining risk among female sex workers and transgender women and include mathematical modeling and cost-effectiveness analysis.

Drs. Altice and Kamarulzaman have trained many pre- and post-doctoral fellows in medicine and public health. Trainees have been from Malaysia, the United States and elsewhere, and they come to learn about issues related to urban health, HIV, tuberculosis, health services research and addiction medicine. This site provides opportunities to work with drug use, HIV risk, tuberculosis, primary and secondary HIV prevention and intervention research within the criminal justice system and in collaboration with NGOs that provide health care services to transgender women and female sex workers.