Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and one of the poorest in the world. Not coincidentally, Haiti is also the hemisphere’s most HIV-burdened country. In 1983, DGHE Associate Chief Dr. Paul Farmer began treating patients in a settlement of rural Haitians displaced by a hydroelectric dam.

Today, Zanmi Lasante (Partners In Health in Haitian Kreyol), as Dr. Farmer and his colleagues’ effort was christened, is one of the largest nongovernmental health care providers in Haiti. In collaboration with their Haitian colleagues, DGHE and PIH clinicians and staff have created the Zanmi Lasante Sociomedical Complex, which features a range of health services, including a hospital with two operating rooms, pediatric and adult inpatient wards, a women’s health clinic and an infectious disease center. In 1998, it launched the world’s first program to provide free, comprehensive HIV care in an impoverished setting. By 2007, the project had been expanded to eight additional clinic sites throughout the country, conducting more than 1.7 million patient visits that year alone.

DGHE clinicians who work in Haiti provide direct patient care, train community health workers, conduct research and engage in special public health policy initiatives. In particular, their work is focused on AIDS prevention and treatment in the context of primary care, advancing tuberculosis care, improving screening and treatment of sexually transmitted infections and improving women's health. The Haiti team also addresses the social inequalities that put patients at increased risk of disease through The Program on Social and Economic Rights, which provides nutritional support, builds houses, pays for school fees and ensures access to clean drinking water—effectively reducing the barriers to health faced by some of the world’s poorest people.