BACKGROUND AND BRIEF HISTORY

In 1993, ZAPP–UZ was founded as a collaborative project of the Stanford University, University of Zimbabwe and the National Blood Transfusion Service. It was funded by a grant awarded by the National Institute of Health and held by Stanford University. The Principal Investigator was Prof David Katzenstein, he also thought of the name (Zimbabwe AIDS Prevention Project–ZAPP) and about a million other ideas. The initial award aimed to characterize HIV prevalence and prospectively establish HIV incidence in a cohort of male factory workers who donated blood. Risk factors for prevalent and incident HIV infection were also sought. Investigators came from the Departments of Medicine (Professor A Latif), Medical Microbiology and Gynecology (Prof M Mbizo). Professor Simbarashe Rusakaniko is the ZAPP-UZ Director. Professor Rusakaniko is also the current Chairperson of the Department of Community Medicine, College of Health Sciences, University of Zimbabwe.