Continued...
Darkoh envisions a future in which perhaps 20 "expert nodes" of top AIDS doctors are set up across sub-Saharan Africa and where even experts in the United States and Europe are called in on tough cases, effectively reversing the continent's brain drain.
Once networks of local health-care workers are established and linked with experts, he believes, the relatively low-cost system could also be used to track, treat and manage other problems, from tuberculosis to high blood pressure, and to boost routine childhood immunization, which remains weak in much of Africa. Eventually the system could be taken over by African governments.
`A remarkable guy'
"Ernest is a remarkable guy," said Joep Lange, head of PharmAccess, a European foundation that, like Darkoh's company, aims to get antiretroviral treatment into more hands. "He's a doctor, but he also knows systems. There are very few people in the field that combine that."
As Africa looks for models to improve AIDS treatment, "Ernest is going to be one of the players," he said.
Darkoh these days is so busy flying between African capitals, his company's office in Washington and his South African project base in Cape Town that he doesn't bother keeping an apartment anywhere. He's tired, he admits, and hasn't had time for much of a social life or to develop his passion for painting and drawing.
With his company's new projects still in the start-up phase, money is tight, particularly for someone who once enjoyed a big salary at McKinsey and a posh New York apartment.
But "it's not hard for me to get out of bed in the morning," he said, smiling as he packs away a laptop computer. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to do something I really believe in."
Darkoh envisions a future in which perhaps 20 "expert nodes" of top AIDS doctors are set up across sub-Saharan Africa and where even experts in the United States and Europe are called in on tough cases, effectively reversing the continent's brain drain.
Once networks of local health-care workers are established and linked with experts, he believes, the relatively low-cost system could also be used to track, treat and manage other problems, from tuberculosis to high blood pressure, and to boost routine childhood immunization, which remains weak in much of Africa. Eventually the system could be taken over by African governments.
`A remarkable guy'
"Ernest is a remarkable guy," said Joep Lange, head of PharmAccess, a European foundation that, like Darkoh's company, aims to get antiretroviral treatment into more hands. "He's a doctor, but he also knows systems. There are very few people in the field that combine that."
As Africa looks for models to improve AIDS treatment, "Ernest is going to be one of the players," he said.
Darkoh these days is so busy flying between African capitals, his company's office in Washington and his South African project base in Cape Town that he doesn't bother keeping an apartment anywhere. He's tired, he admits, and hasn't had time for much of a social life or to develop his passion for painting and drawing.
With his company's new projects still in the start-up phase, money is tight, particularly for someone who once enjoyed a big salary at McKinsey and a posh New York apartment.
But "it's not hard for me to get out of bed in the morning," he said, smiling as he packs away a laptop computer. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, to do something I really believe in."
