A University of Maryland institute has received $138 million in federal funds to launch a center focused on fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa, The Baltimore Sun reports.

Based in Baltimore, the newly created Center for International Health, Education and Biosecurity will be part of the University of Maryland School of Medicine’s Institute of Human Virology.

The funding arrives from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention through the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). Six HIV-related programs will be set up and funded over five years in Kenya, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia.

According to the World Health Organization, about 70 percent of the 36.7 million people worldwide living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa. And of the 1.1 million HIV-related deaths, 800,000 were in Africa.

The goal of the new HIV institute is to lower new infections and test and treat those already living with the virus.

Deus Bazira Mubangizi, DrPH, MPH, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, has been named director of the institute. “We’ve been doing this work,” he told the Sun, “but with the center, we will be able to pool our strengths.”