Muktar Aliyu, M.D., associate professor of Health Policy and Medicine, is receiving the William Kane Rising Star Award from the American College of Preventive Medicine (ACPM) at its annual banquet on Saturday in New Orleans.
The Award honors an ACPM member, within seven years of completion of residency training and certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine, who has demonstrated a commitment to Preventive Medicine and the potential to make significant contributions to the field of Preventive Medicine and its organizations.
“It is a national award given to usually one person a year. Some of the previous recipients have been people that I know, so it is a privilege to have something in common with them,” Aliyu said.
Aliyu and colleagues recently completed an initial five-year project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) to comprehensively support HIV/AIDS services in two Nigerian states and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory.
The project, which ended in October 2013, provided free medications, HIV testing, counseling services and substantial training to health care workers in order to ensure sustainability. Aliyu’s team worked with the CDC to transition the services to a local entity that now has a five-year grant to do the same work on an even larger scale in four states.
“Nigeria has the second largest burden of HIV/AIDS in the world after South Africa,” Aliyu said. “This project is something that I am tremendously proud of. I think Vanderbilt as an institution should be proud of what we did because we have saved countless lives, and more importantly, prevented thousands of babies from being born with HIV.”
