Dr. Elkin Bejarano This is Me

Education

 Web References

1. 1. AIDS Action Committee_HIV Health_Wellspring

   www.aac.org/wellspringhtml/dru - [Cached]

   Published on: 7/30/2001   Last Visited: 7/4/2003

   Elkin Bejarano, MD, is the program director at AID FOR AIDS in New York. He said HIV positive people living in Latin America and the Caribbean must fill out an application before they become AID FOR AIDS clients.
   
   "We want to understand the medical history of each person we accept," Bejarano said."We also want to make sure that our clients have doctors whom they see regularly." Bejarano and other doctors at AID FOR AIDS review the applications to decide who will benefit the most from their program.
   
   "We do not take a new client until we know that we'll have enough meds to send them month after month," Bejarano said. "This is very important because stopping and starting new meds can lead to people developing a resistance to drugs. That makes it harder to treat people in the long run."
   
   Clients send AID FOR AIDS new viral load and CD4 cell counts every four months." That way we can see how they are doing," Bejarano said.
   
   Like UAAI, AID FOR AIDS relies on donations to keep its program running. Both groups keep careful note of when the donated bottles were first opened and when the medicines will be too old to use.
   
   AID FOR AIDS sends recycled meds directly to clients in El Salvador, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. They also send leftover pills to people in Columbia,Venezuela, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Mexico. "The number of people we treat may be small - just 130 - but they are surviving," Bejarano said.
   ...
   Send packages to Dr. Elkin Bejarano, program director, AID FOR AIDS, 515 Greenwich, Suite 506, New York, NY 10013.