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The future of the largest long-term AIDS study outside the US is in
the balance. Zairean scientists are struggling to maintain Projet SIDA,
a research project in the capital, Kinshasa, after their foreign colleagues
fled riots there. The project, which has been running for eight years, is
funded almost entirely by the US government.

Nzilambi Nzilla, Projet SIDA’s joint director, says that the offices
of the national AIDS control programme were looted but Projet SIDA’s offices
have been left unharmed.

Projet SIDA had just taken delivery of 30 new computers when the riots
began, says Nzila. The laboratory facilities for HIV testing are probably
more sophisticated than any in sub-Saharan African and the project employs
230 staff and 30 physicians. But the American director, William Heyward,
from the Centers for Disease Control in the US, has been forced to leave,
along with other colleagues.

‘The project has been suspended, but not terminated,’ says Heyward.
‘We are still waiting, watching and hoping that we will be able to go back
and resume our activities.’

Heyward says the project’s clinics were maintaining basic clinical service
whenever possible. He contrasts the relative safety of the expatriate researchers
with the predicament of their Zairean colleagues. ‘We have left, but they
fear they may lose their jobs. Many of these people are internationally
recognised in their areas, and they may go from that to nothing.’