ALEX COUTINHO, MBChB, MS, MPH
Dr. Alex Coutinho serves as the Executive Director of The AIDS Support Organization of Uganda (TASO) - the largest AIDS care and support organization in Sub-Saharan Africa currently supporting 50,000 HIV+ clients with an annual budget of $22,000,000 and a staff complement of 1,000. In the 5 years since he took up Executive Director, Dr. Coutinho has guided TASO from an NGO represented in 7 districts to one represented across Uganda. He has increased the number of HIV+ people receiving care from from 20,000 to 50,000, of whom 7,000 are on anti-retroviral treatment (ART).
Dr. Coutinho has been a member of the interim board of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, representing TASO in the process of setting up the fund in 2001. He was also the vice-chair of the Global Fund Technical Review from 2002-2004. He has also served as the Vice Chairperson of the International Board for the International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) since 2005.
From 1996-2001, Dr. Coutinho served in a variety of roles at the Royal Swaziland Sugar Corporation (RSSC). He gradually built up HIV programmes at RSSC to provide holistic prevention and care including VCT, management of opportunistic infections, TB clinic, AIDS clinic, peer education programme as well as hospital management and palliative care for terminal AIDS patients. In addition, he provided technical input to the Swaziland National AIDS Programme (SNAP) and the Federation of Swaziland Employers (FSE). During his time, he provided counseling and care to hundreds of AIDS patients. Over time, he was responsible for enlarging the organization to include a community service management role. This provided more opportunity for the company to implement a multi-sectoral approach on a local level with the involvement of schools, communities, churches, and unions in an expanded HIV prevention and care programme. Dr. Coutinho also pioneered the inclusion of HIV/AIDS into a comprehensive Employee Assistance Programme in Swaziland.
