CREATE was initiated with a pilot grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2002, and spent two years establishing a consortium of leading experts in TB and HIV who designed novel public health interventions to reduce the burden of HIV-related TB at the population level.

The second phase of CREATE, also funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was launched by Nelson Mandela at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok in July, 2004. Mr. Mandela described his own experience as a TB patient, and advocated a vigorous assault on TB and HIV, stating “We cannot fight AIDS unless we do much more to fight TB as well.”

Thibela TB is one CREATE's studies that looks into measuring the impact of community wide isoniazid preventive therapy (IPT) on TB incidence and prevalence in mine shafts in South Africa.

Representing TB/HIV control programs, academic institutions, clinicians, policy makers, and the community, CREATE has now finished its fourth year of implementing research projects to assess the impact of bold new public health paradigms for controlling HIV-related TB. Over the several years, CREATE projects produced critically important information about the impact of these new strategies on TB control in areas affected by HIV.

While most medical research studies are designed to demonstrate benefits for individual patients, CREATE’s research portfolio addresses whether the inventions are effective at a community level. Moreover, CREATE is working closely with the World Health Organization (WHO) Stop-TB Partnership to use the fruits of the research effort to inform global public health policy through evidence-based advocacy.

CREATE will both identify the public health strategies that can drive down rates of TB in those parts of the world suffering from the catastrophic collision of these two epidemics and advocate to restructure the public health responses to TB/HIV on the basis of the new information generated by our research.

The CREATE projects are bold in concept, large in scope and targeted at producing population-level benefits. The CREATE research teams are comprised of dedicated and talented individuals committed to changing the trajectory of the TB/HIV epidemic, working in close collaboration with local and national health authorities, clinicians and representatives of the affected communities.

The scope of the TB/HIV problem is enormous, and the goals of CREATE are correspondingly ambitious. We are committed to developing new paradigms of public health practice that will drive down the global burden of HIV-related TB for years to come. We welcome your interest in our mission and invite you to learn more about our activities in this website.