At 18 months of age in his mother’s arms, this little boy was cured of drug resistant TB by the GHC team after life threatening pneumonia and sepsis, at St Peter’s Hospital, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He caught DR-TB in an internally displaced shelter for Tigrayans fleeing the civil war.
Impact of our work
Cambodia 1994 - Present
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Long-Term Impact: Since 2004, CHC has successfully treated over 110,000 adults and children for tuberculosis.
National Reach in 2024: CHC implemented community-based TB treatment (Community Daily Observed Therapy (DOTS)) in 13 of Cambodia’s 25 provinces.
Pioneering Model: CHC began community TB care in 1994 in Svay Rieng, introducing patient supporters, food assistance (with WFP), and microfinance to improve treatment adherence.
Scaling Innovation: From 2003–2006, CHC piloted Community DOTS in two provinces, then partnered with the National TB Program to scale it nationwide.
Global Recognition: The World Health Organization credited CHC’s Community DOTS with helping drive Cambodia’s dramatic decline in TB prevalence from the 1990s to 2010.
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Early Leadership: In 2006, CHC launched Cambodia’s first drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) program in partnership with the Cambodian National TB Program (NTP).
High-Impact Care: By 2024, the program has treated over 2,100 patients with high success rates in both community and hospital settings.
Sustainable Scale-Up: In 2012, CHC transitioned leadership of the DR-TB program to the National TB Program, while continuing as the lead clinical partner nationwide.
Global Reach: CHC helped launch DR-TB programs in Vietnam and Ethiopia by providing hands-on clinical training to national teams.
Ongoing Clinical Leadership: CHC continues to manage clinical care for all DR-TB patients in Cambodia, in collaboration with the National TB Program.
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Pioneering Since 1998: CHC launched HIV prevention programs in rural Cambodia through its community TB program and village bank network.
First to Act: In 2003, CHC was the first to introduce drugs to treat HIV/AIDS in rural Cambodia.
Reaching the Underserved: In 2024, 6,217 people received HIV care through CHC programs in Svay Rieng, Kompot, and Phnom Penh.
Proven Scale: Over 13,000 individuals have received HIV treatment through CHC in the past 22 years.
Global Research Leader: In 2006, CHC co-led the CAMELIA trial with global (French AIDS Agency, NIH, Pasteur Institute) and national partners establishing TB/HIV centers of excellence.
Practice-Changing Impact: The CAMELIA study proved that early AIDS treatment boosts survival by 34%, transforming care guidelines globally.
Global Lives Saved: WHO adopted CHC-driven findings in 2011—with an estimated 1 million+ lives saved worldwide as of 2025.
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Early Leadership: In 2006, CHC founded the Maddox Chivan Children’s Center (MCCC) with Angelina Jolie to care for children living with or orphaned by HIV/AIDS, starting one of the first HIV/AIDS treatment sites for children.
Continuity of Care: Today, CHC provides care at the national NCHADS Clinic in Phnom Penh for children under 15 and for adults who grew up in its programs, and others, in partnership with the National AIDS Program.
Pediatric Firsts: MCCC was among the first sites in Cambodia to provide AIDS treatment for children and became a national training hub for pediatric HIV/AIDS care.
Comprehensive Support: CHC and MCCC pioneered integrated services—including education, nutrition, and counseling—for children infected or affected by HIV.
Child-Centered Innovation: MCCC developed Cambodia’s first age-specific counseling manual to help children understand their illness and adhere to treatment, now widely used.
Scaling Care: In 2009, CHC opened the Joseph P. Sullivan Pediatric HIV Treatment Center at the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital, Cambodia’s largest public hospital.
High-Volume Impact: As of 2024, the Sullivan Center has provided over 85,000 clinic visits to more than 600 HIV-positive children.
Mulu and her children (two are shown here with her) arrived at St. Peter’s Hospital suffering from drug-resistant TB. Mulu and her newborn almost died, and her 3 and 10 year olds were also severely ill. In the photo here, Mulu and the infant and 3 year old Lemi, were on their way to cure from drug resistant TB in the GHC/Ethiopian Ministry of Health collaborative program at St Peter’s Hospital, Addis Ababa, 2024.
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Pioneering Start: In 2009, GHC in partnership with Angelina Jolie and the Jolie-Pitt Foundation and the Ethiopian Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH), initiated Ethiopia’s first drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) treatment program at St. Peter’s Hospital in Addis Ababa, following CHC-led training in Cambodia.
National Expansion: GHC scaled-up the program to Gondar University Hospital (2010) in the north, and to Yirgalem Hospital (2012) in the south, and extended access to care to war-affected Afar and Tigray in 2023-4.
Innovating Care Models: GHC piloted outpatient DR-TB treatment initiation in 2010 with GHC Home-based care—later adopted nationally—improving access and reducing hospitalization needs.
National Policy Leadership: As a core member of Ethiopia’s DR-TB Technical Working Group, GHC helped shape strategies for treatment, side-effect monitoring, food and social support, and outpatient care now embedded in national protocols. And, helped introduce teh country to new DR-TB drugs beginning in 2015.
Proven Results: In 2015, GHC reported Africa’s highest DR-TB treatment success to date in a high-burden, resource-limited setting—published in BMJ Thorax.
Scaling Access: As of March 2025, GHC/FMOH programs have directly treated 2,956 patients (22% HIV co-infected), and contributed to the national scale-up reaching 5,800+ additional individuals.
Global Research Impact: In 2011, the GHC/St. Peter’s Hospital Program became a clinical site for the international STREAM Trial led by the UK’s Medical Research Council and the Union, which generated key data for WHO to recommend shortening DR-TB treatment from 2 years to 9 months with an all oral treatment regimen—published in NEJM (2019) and The Lancet (2022, 2024).
GHC made visits to South Sudan and Zambia at the invitation of UNAIDS to assist in start-up of their DR-TB national programs.
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As of March 2025, 556 children and teens have received life-saving treatment for drug-resistant TB through the GHC/Federal Ministry of Health (FMOH) partnership in Ethiopia—one of the largest and most effective pediatric DR-TB programs in Africa.
The Zahara Children’s Center (ZCC) scheduled to open in winter 2026, will be the region’s first state-of-the-art center for pediatric TB and drug-resistant TB care. In partnership with Ethiopia’s National TB Program and the Oromian Health Bureau, the ZCC will serve as both a center of excellence for treatment and a training hub to advance pediatric DR-TB diagnosis and care across Africa.
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Rebuilding in Crisis Zones: In 2023, GHC restored the DR-TB program at Dupti Hospital in Afar Province, where critical DR-TB services had been disrupted by spillover conflict from the civil war in neighboring Tigray.
Addressing Malnutrition: From July 2023 to December 2024, GHC provided 22,513 hot meals and therapeutic feeding to two highly vulnerable groups at the Mekele General Hospital:
Malnourished DR-TB patients
Women receiving care at Mekele’s ‘One-Stop Clinic’ for survivors of widespread sexual violence during the conflict
Both groups had an average BMI of 15, with some patients presenting BMIs below 13—indicating starvation-level malnutrition.
Technical Support: Since 2023, GHC has provided ongoing support to strengthen the DR-TB program at Mekele Hospital, ensuring continuity of care in a post-conflict setting.
Ethiopia 2009 - Present
Across borders
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South–South Leadership in DR-TB Capacity Building
CHC and GHC have played a critical role in advancing global DR-TB care through hands-on South–South technical training and mentorship and sharing of lessons learned between Africa and Asia:
In 2007–2008, CHC hosted and trained Vietnam’s DR-TB leadership in Cambodia to support the launch of Vietnam’s national DR-TB program.
In 2008–2009, CHC trained Ethiopia’s designated team to treat DR-TB, and mentored physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and health workers through the early years of Ethiopia’s DR-TB scale-up.
At the request of UNAIDS, GHC Ethiopia shared experience in DR-TB program initiation and expansion in South Sudan (2013) and Zambia (2018), later hosting Zambia’s national team at St. Peter’s Hospital in 2019.
The CHC–GHC team also conducted two technical exchange visits with Myanmar’s DR-TB program in Myanmar, with a focus on pediatric DR-TB care and clinical innovation.
Through these efforts, CHC and GHC have helped accelerate access to care for DR-TB and has established south-south links between 5 national DR-TB programs in high-burden, low-resource settings (Cambodia, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Zambia, and Vietnam)
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Community-Based Cure: Studies in the CHC TB Program show that patient supporters, food packages, home visits, local health workers, and microfinance significantly improve TB and DR-TB outcomes—providing a replicable global model.
(JAMA, 2004)Policy-Changing HIV/TB Research: The CAMELIA trial, co-led by CHC, the French AIDS Agency, the US NIH demonstrated that early initiation of AIDS treatment in co-infected TB/HIV patients increased survival by 34%. These findings shaped WHO global guidelines in 2011 and are estimated to have saved over 1 million lives.
(New England Journal of Medicine, 2011)Best-in-sub-Saharan Africa DR-TB Outcomes: GHC’s Ethiopia program achieved the highest documented MDR-TB success rates in sub-Saharan Africa, even in patients with advanced disease and high HIV co-infection.
(British Medical Journal Thorax, 2015 – “Best in Thorax” selection)Global Regimen Shift: As a STREAM Trial site, GHC contributed pivotal data that enabled WHO to recommend shorter, all-oral DR-TB regimens, reducing treatment duration from 2 years to 6–9 months.
(New England Journal of Medicine, 2019; The Lancet, 2022/2024)Hospital vs. Community Care: CHC/National TB Program for DR-TB in Cambodia showed equivalent cure rates between community- and hospital-based MDR-TB treatment initiation and care i.e. home vs hospital. This showed that decentralized care works.
(British Medical Journal Open Respiratory Research, 2018)
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TB is the leading cause of death among people living with HIV, responsible for up to half of all AIDS deaths since the start of the pandemic. To raise global awareness and push for access to life-saving TB, DR-TB, and HIV treatments, we partnered with Time Magazine war photographer James Nachtwey beginning in 2003 to document the human toll of these diseases in Cambodia leading to publication in Time Magazine, and to major exhibits at the United Nations (New York), Le Laboratoire (Paris), the Max Planck Institute (Berlin), the Gates Grand Challenge Conference (Bangkok), and the U.S. Capitol (Washington D.C.), which elevated the public and scientific consciousness of TB and HIV as a humanitarian emergency.
In parallel, CHC helped shape the global research agenda by initiating the first combined TB/HIV sessions at the International AIDS Society Meeting (2004), which is still ongoing and the TB/HIV Keystone Symposium in Tanzania (2009)—which bridged previous gaps in the global scientific response and were milestones in the recognition that TB/HIV co-infection is a deadly condition.
CHC’s Maddox Chivan Children’s Center for children affected by HIV in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
Cambodian Health Committee team celebrates with the Ethiopian health staff and first group of patients in the Ethiopian drug-resistant TB program to complete the 6 month inpatient phase of their 2 year treatment inlcluding at the time daily painful injections, at St. Peter’s Hospital, 2009. Dr. Sok Thim (second from left in middle row) holds hands to his left with Yohannes who contracted a debilitating case of DR-TB when he was a medical student.