Early on, Projet SIDA researchers confirmed the presence of AIDS outside of the United States through laboratory testing of blood samples collected by Bila Kapita.
In 1975 Kapita, a cardiologist and at that time the head of internal medicine at Mama Yemo, observed an increased number of these patients with Kaposi's sarcoma, a rare type of tumor linked to AIDS.
Francis's team included Kalisa Ruti and focused primarily on virological and immunological studies of the serum of Kapita's collected blood samples.
[5] The CDC's involvement in containing Zaire's 1976–1977 Ebola outbreak had earned the agency a degree of confidence within Zairian government, and thus became a natural partner for this new AIDS crisis.
After Kapita presented research at the 1986 Paris International AIDS Conference, the Zairian government threatened the doctor with arrest for revealing information about the country's HIV prevalence.
[7] At the same time, the Zairian government based their support of Project SIDA upon the expectation that the collaboration would offer training for medical staff in Kinshasa.
[8] By the late 1980s the Zairian National AIDS Program had adopted a number of recommendations for public health campaigns based on Project SIDA's research.
[12] This local surveillance of health care workers, but not the population at large, responded to Zairian concerns about transmission of HIV in hospital settings.
[11] In July 1984 Project SIDA's preliminary findings from the 1983 Mama Yemo study of Kapita's blood samples were published in the scientific journal The Lancet.
This article marked the first major publication from the project and included Piot, Kapita, Henri Taelman, K. Ndangi, Kayembe Kalambayi, Chris Bridts, Thomas Quinn, Fred Feinsod, Odio Wobin, P. Mazebo, Wim Stevens, Sheila Mitchell, and Joseph McCormick as contributors.
[5] In April 1985 Project SIDA members Kapita, Nzila Nzilambi, Mann, and Piot along with Dr. Pangu Kaza Asila of the Zairian Ministry of Health and Dr. Wobin Odio of the University of Kinshasa, attended the First International Conference on AIDS in Atlanta.
With the help of the German Technical Cooperation Agency (GTZ), Project SIDA organized sera labs that would allow rapid testing of donations before blood transfusions, which had previously accounted for 1000 cases of HIV per year.
[10] Project SIDA discovered that 26 percent of Matonge participants were HIV positive and provided counseling, condoms, and STI treatment in the community.
After a soldiers' mutiny in 1991, the U.S. ended all research and aid programs in Zaire, and all Belgian and American Project SIDA workers were pulled from the country.
[5] In 1991, Eugene Nzila Nzilambi took over as director of Project SIDA, which was still receiving limited funds from Doctors Without Borders and the Belgian government.
During the mid to late-1980s, many U.S. and European projects were concerned with proving that HIV-1, which had only been isolated and proven to be associated with AIDS in the summer of 1983, could be transmitted through heterosexual intercourse.
[3] The project's early studies responded to local concerns of prevalence among Mama Yemo Hospital staff, identifying risk groups within Kinshasa, and examining household transmission.
The first of these was a clinic in Matonge, a hub for sex work in Kinshasa, which provided condoms, STI treatment, and counseling for HIV positive participants.
This initiative began with former Project SIDA staff Bosenge Ngali, the director of the Zairian National AIDS Programme (the first of its kind in Africa).
Examples include Claudes Kamenga, an epidemiologist with Project SIDA for five years before joining Family Health International in Arlington, Virginia.
A number of Zairian staff continued working in what is now known as the DRC, although notably Nzilambi remained in Zaire, at the Project SIDA labs until at least 1997.
[17] Bila Kapita felt that Project SIDA had invested too much money in epidemiological research, leaving little in the budget for the treatment of Mama Yemo AIDS patients and prevention in the larger community.