The Rakai Health Sciences Program (RHSP) in Uganda was established in 1988 as a health research and service delivery organization dedicated to combating HIV/AIDS and advancing global public health. Since its founding, RHSP has shared a partnership with the JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health to conduct interdisciplinary research studies and address the control of HIV/AIDS. Alongside partners such as JHU, the program has markedly reduced HIV-related deaths and reduced HIV transmissions by over 70%. In the fall of 2024, RHSP reached a new historic milestone: achieving net-zero energy through an installation of solar panels on facility buildings and a liquid immersion cooling system for high-capacity computer servers.
Dr. Thomas Quinn, Director of JHU Center for Global Health and professor of medicine and pathology in the JHU School of Medicine, professor of international health, epidemiology, and molecular microbiology and immunology in the JHU School of Public Health, and professor of nursing in the JHU School of Nursing, has been involved with HIV/AIDS research since 1981 and has been involved with the RHSP since its founding.
We sat down with Dr. Quinn to learn more about RHSP and its net-zero achievement:
How did Dr. Quinn get involved with the Rakai Health Sciences Program?
In 1983, after AIDS was first identified in Africa, Dr. Quinn began a research study in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (then called Zaïre). When civil war broke out, Dr. Quinn and his colleagues were forced to leave Zaïre.
“My colleagues at JHU invited me to join them and bring my laboratory and clinical expertise to Uganda to work on a number of projects there,” says Dr. Quinn. “One of those projects was the Rakai Health Sciences Program.”
The program was formed to study and combat what Ugandans had initially termed as “slim’s disease”– what eventually was recognized as HIV/AIDS. A team of Ugandan and JHU investigators, including Dr. Quinn, formed the Rakai Community Cohort Study, comprising thousands of people across 25 villages and townships. The study monitored individuals over time to understand changes in infection status and search for risk factors. This study and this partnership continue today.
We look at RHSP as one of the most successful programs in the fight against AIDS.”
In 2003, a program called the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) brought life-saving antiretroviral drugs into the region. Nearly 90% of the RHSP’s HIV-infected patients rely on therapy funded by PEPFAR, which has decreased orphan rates, decreased the number of HIV-infected children, and has slowed the spread of HIV.
“It’s been 40 years of very tight collaboration where lots of research has been done,” says Dr. Quinn. “We look at [RHSP] as one of the most successful programs in the fight against AIDS.”
What inspired the conversion to solar energy?
In order to support the growing demands and capacity of RHSP, reliable infrastructure is critical. The facilities include an administrative building, laboratories, a freezer repository, mechanisms for transport, and a high-computing center to store all data that is generated.
“All of these things require electricity,” says Dr. Quinn. “We are in a very remote, rural part of Uganda where the electricity is somewhat unreliable. Lots of brown-outs and black-outs. As we grew, it was clear to us that this was an untenable situation.”
“And yet, here we are sitting on the equator with lots of sun, so the obvious response was to move to solar power,” says Dr. Quinn.
In 2022, Dr. Steven Reynolds, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at JHU and a Senior Clinician and Chief of the International HIV/STD Research Section at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and Ugandan colleagues received federal funding from the Division of Intramural Research of NIAID to support the installation of the solar panel system. Over the course of the following two years, RHSP completed the full conversion of electrical needs to solar power.
From a sustainability perspective, what are the implications of this transition for the Rakai Health Sciences Program and the surrounding community?
Since the installation of solar panels, RHSP is no longer dependent on the local power grid and can operate self-sufficiently. When they were reliant on the local power grid, RHSP was forced to install diesel-fueled backup generators and often replaced equipment due to the unpredictability of electrical spikes and failures.
“In remote locations like Kalisizo, Rakai, and Entebbe, Uganda, where electrical power is very unstable with frequent surges, the need for sustainable energy solutions is more crucial than ever,” says Dr. Quinn.
“We were the biggest drawer of that power,” says Dr. Quinn. “Now, all that power can go back to the community.”
The electricity that is generated from the solar panels gets stored in inverter batteries, so that during the night the system can still generate the electrical needs of RHSP. In addition to the solar panels, a liquid immersion cooling system was installed to keep the high-capacity computer systems at a stable temperature. This requires less air conditioning and therefore less electricity demand. Without the need for diesel generators anymore, RHSP has achieved a reduction in carbon emissions. Energy costs have decreased significantly, as well.
In remote locations, where electrical power is unstable, the need for sustainable energy solutions is more crucial than ever.”
“It’s really been a wonderful 360 going from a small laboratory and data entry room to a very large system that is highly efficient and highly productive,” says Dr. Quinn. “[RHSP] has produced over 500 scientific publications over the years and is also pushing the envelope on doing what we can to save the environment.”
RHSP has held seminars educating the public about solar panels. Dr. Quinn has seen solar units being installed on certain buildings in the community on his walks home from the clinic, he says.
“The [RHSP’s] first responsibility is the provision of health, and that is part of the Hopkins mission: health for everyone globally,” says Dr. Quinn. “As we are cognizant about sustainability and the impacts that we have on the environment, we hope that [our] dedication also impacts the communities that we serve.”
“I am particularly proud that we have invested in the sustainability aspect of provision of our electricity so that we are not dependent on the electrical grid that is unstable and unpredictable,” says Dr. Quinn. “I think it serves as an example of what can be accomplished with the right investments going into the future. This is what needs to happen everywhere.”