Welcome to the website of the West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF)
and the partner organization International Health Care Center (IHCC).
Located in Accra, the capital of Ghana, our aim is to reach out to individuals and communities on issues about communicable diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI) and TuBerculosis (TB). We educate on Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT), empower People Living with HIV (PLHIV) and improve their self sufficiency. Our clinic in Accra is open to all people in need of medical assistance of any kind.
This website provides information on the services offered by WAAF and IHCC, their staff and the programmes that are currently being run. If any questions remain unanswered please feel free to contact us.
To reach our goal we rely primarily on our partners and sponsors, local and international.
Some of our leading partners are:
A brief history:
In 1998 Eddie Dane Donton founded the International Health Care Center (IHCC) and in 1999 the West Africa AIDS Foundation (WAAF). Before opening the clinic Eddie worked for a long time in the United States. In 1994 he opened a hospice center called Care One Hospice in California. At this time HIV/AIDS epidemic was just beginning in the States. Therefore, it did not take long for his hospice to be filled up with HIV/AIDS patients. He ran Care One succesfully for four years. During this time Eddie, who is a Ghanaian by birth, visited Ghana and was confronted by the same situation there. He decided to open a center in Ghana to assist PLHIV. This center is IHCC and was set up in the footsteps of Care One Hospice.
Not long after opening IHCC, problems started to occur. Contrary to the situation in the States, where medical insurance has been in existence for many years, Ghana at this time had a medical system based on "cash and carry". This meant that everyone had to pay for medical services at the time of delivery. In most cases without payment no medical care would be given.
HIV/AIDS has massive economic consequences on society. Many people lose their jobs if not because of the illness itself, then as a result of stigmatization and discrimination. Consequently the management of IHCC was confronted with the inability of PLHIV to pay for services given to them. In order to give these patients medical assistance, WAAF, as a Non Governmental Organization (NGO), was founded. WAAF focuses on prevention, awareness creation, advocacy, Voluntary Counseling and Testing (VCT), fundraising and networking. Thereby, WAAF assists IHCC in providing treatment, care and support, research and community home care. The work done by the two organizations can therefore be seen as complementary. 
