San Francisco – St. Petersburg AIDS Eye Initiative Medical Mission 2011
This year's mission took place and was accomplished in June 2011 as a collaborative effort of the Congress of Russian Americans, the Seva Foundation and the California Pacific Medical Center (CPMC) Department of Ophthalmology. The goal of the Mission was to help eliminate AIDS-related blindness by sharing expertise by American medical team from San Francisco with AIDS medical experts in St. Petersburg, Russia. The HIV epidemic represents a nearly existential issue for Russia because majority of people infected with HIV are under the age of 30.
During its stay in Russia the American team, headed by Dr. Heiden and included Dr. Marina Soboleva, who is a member of the CRA National Board of Directors, conducted training for the primary care AIDS clinicians at Botkin Hospital in diagnosis and managing of CMV retinitis. The training included the use of an indirect ophthalmoscope, a diagnostic instrument used for this purpose.
The blindness is part of the AIDS story, where up to one third of AIDS patients get a retinal infection with a common virus called CMV (cytomegalovirus) that can cause blindness. Because CMV infection does not cause redness or pain, the best method of detecting the infection before the patient goes blind is by examination of the retina with an indirect ophthalmoscope, an instrument that is currently used only by ophthalmologists, but the procedure can be taught to AIDS clinicians.
The indirect ophthalmoscopes that were brought and used by the American team were donated to the Botkin Hospital by the Congress of Russian Americans.
