Kara Clinic and Laboratory is a HIV/AIDS treatment clinic. It is one of the nine Kara Counselling and Training Trust programmes. The clinic was opened in 2004 and has approximately 4,000 patients enrolled in care since its inception. The main objective of the service is to up lift lives of people affected with HIV/AIDS by providing free ART treatment.
Research which was conducted in July 2009 by the University of Boston indicates that Kara Clinic is one of the best performing clinics in the sub-Saharan region. Our one year retention percentage (this is the number of people that are still alive and on treatment after 12 months into the programme) is the highest percentage reported in Zambia and sub Sahara Africa (91%).
In 2009, we started a male circumcision programme at Kara clinic. So far more than 500 people have been circumcised. In the Zambian HIV setting eight (8) circumcisions prevent one (1) new HIV infection. We have therefore since the start of the program prevented approximately 60 new infections. The male circumcision programme is in partnership with Marie Stopes International and it is currently free of charge.
Kara Clinic has a modern laboratory. We perform tests to monitor the progress of HIV disease and ARV therapy such as CD4 counts, liver, and kidney function tests and full blood counts. The tests that are done by our qualified personnel are free for our enrolled clients but also available for the public at an affordable prize.
Apart from the treatment of HIV/AIDS, Kara Clinic is engaged in training of clinical officers and nurse practitioners. The training programmes take place in collaboration with CIDRZ (the Centre for Infectious Disease Control in Zambia), the Ministry of Health and several University Programmes (University of Alabama, University of Washington). So far 100 clinical Officers have been trained in the management of ART, a 3 week advanced clinical mentoring training course, at Kara.
Kara Clinic has a well stocked medical library and computers with internet access to support our training and research activities.