With the prison filled beyond capacity, overworked and skeletal staff can't keep track of illness here, May said.
"The first priority is to deliver the care that's needed to those who are going to die unnecessarily," he said. "There are patients there who are going to die and who have died from conditions that are treatable."
May applied for a PEPFAR grant last year and was turned down. He is trying again this year.
US officials, including PEPFAR's Dybul, say they have discussed funding a program at the prison.
In the meantime, May brought rapid HIV tests to the prison during a September visit and returned two weeks later with antiretroviral medicine for a prisoner whose blood test results showed advanced AIDS.
"If the systems aren't going to come together," he said, "I need to treat this patient in front of me."
RSS