JHPIEGO TrainerNews™ |
JHPIEGO Expands Into Area of HIV/AIDS
(May 2002)
As of December 2001, an estimated 40 million people worldwide--13.3 million people between the ages of 15 and 24--were living with HIV/AIDS. More than 70 percent of these people (28.1 million) live in sub-Saharan Africa. HIV/AIDS is now the leading cause of death in sub-Saharan Africa with approximately 3.4 million new infections in 2001. These devastating figures make it clear that this pandemic requires
- creative interventions that help prevent the spread of HIV; and
- programs that address both the fragile healthcare workforce and the patients who need basic reproductive healthcare services.
In response to the international HIV/AIDS epidemic, the JHPIEGO Corporation has begun to develop education and training programs in HIV/AIDS for those working in limited-resource settings. This effort has involved collaboration with organizations including the US Department of Health and Human Services (HRSA - HIV/AIDS Bureau), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), national governments, the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) School of Medicine, the Academy for Educational Development (AED), and local and regional nongovernmental organizations.
Continuing Education
Multimedia Tutorials on Care of Women with HIV
In 2000, Dr. Jean Anderson, Director of the Johns Hopkins HIV Women's Health Program, edited and helped write a guide on the care of women living with HIV/AIDS. This guide focused on health issues specific to HIV-positive women. However, the guide was targeted to clinicians providing primary care in developed countries. JHPIEGO is working with Dr. Anderson and other leading experts to adapt this guide for use in limited-resource settings by field-testing a series of multimedia tutorials on a variety of topics.
Designed with healthcare professionals in mind, JHPIEGO has developed a series of ReproLearn(r) multimedia tutorials entitled Care of Women Living with HIV in Limited-Resource Settings. The tutorials are designed to equip physicians, faculty and healthcare trainers in limited-resource settings with the technical knowledge they need to provide high quality healthcare services to women with HIV/AIDS and to train other healthcare providers. The tutorials can be used as either job aids for trainers disseminating national HIV/AIDS guidelines or reference materials for preservice or inservice HIV/AIDS training programs.
The series includes modules on prevention, voluntary counseling and testing VCT), reproductive health (RH), mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) through pregnancy and breastfeeding, and nutrition. Upcoming topics will include an overview of antiretroviral (ARV) therapy and ARVs during pregnancy, HIV and tuberculosis, and infection prevention for caregivers. Authors of the tutorials include: Dr. Jean Anderson; Dr. Ellen Piwoz, from the Center of Nutrition at AED; Dorcas Lwanga, from the SARA Project at AED; and Drs. Joel Gallant, Dick Chaisson, and John Bartlett of the JHU School of Medicine.
The tutorials are available for viewing on ReproLine(r), JHPIEGO's RH website (http://www.reproline.jhu.edu) and on CD-ROM by sending e-mail to orders@jhpiego.net.
Training
FP/RH Orientation Guide for HIV Workers in East and Southern Africa
In the past year, JHPIEGO has developed an orientation guide to update HIV/AIDS healthcare providers in essential messages about FP and RH. The guide enables providers to carry out preventive counseling, trains them to provide contraception for the HIV-positive client, and discusses how to negotiate condom use among sero-discordant partners. In the next year, JHPIEGO will work with Family Health International (FHI) in two to four countries in East and Southern Africa to provide technical assistance to implement the orientation program. FHI will conduct a final evaluation of this program.VCT Curriculum for Healthcare Workers in Jamaica and the Eastern Caribbean Region
JHPIEGO is working to help develop a VCT training center and curriculum that will provide the foundation for a regional VCT training program for the Eastern Caribbean Region. The VCT training program will develop a cadre of master trainers who will provide technical assistance and training to other organizations in Jamaica and throughout the Caribbean who wish to establish high quality VCT services for HIV/AIDS.
Infection Prevention Training in East and Southern Africa
JHPIEGO will work with two Regional Economic Development Support Office (REDSO) partners, the Commonwealth Regional Community Health Secretariat in Tanzania, and the Regional Centre for Quality of Health Care in Uganda to train tutors and trainers on the latest state-of-the-art infection prevention practices. This undertaking will include policy and program work, as well as a regional meeting on best practices in infection prevention. JHPIEGO will provide technical assistance to countries interested in adopting and disseminating these best practices as national guidelines.
For additional information about JHPIEGO's work in HIV/AIDS, please send an e-mail to hiv-aids@jhpiego.net.