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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contacts:
Faulconer, Laura
Senior Program Officer, Twinning Center
Washington lfaulconer@aiha.com

Soltan, Viorel
Moldova Project Director
Chisinau viorel@aiha.moldnet.md

 
USAID-funded project helps combat tuberculosis by strengthening health system capacity and increasing public awareness

WASHINGTON, DC, and CHISINAU, MOLDOVA, March 24, 2006—The American International Health Alliance (AIHA)—with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)—is set to extend its successful public awareness campaign, “Tuberculosis Can Be Treated! See the Doctor,” in Moldova’s Transnistria Region. Implementation of the campaign in April and May will mark the first time broad-based TB education and outreach efforts have been instituted in Transnistria.

Focusing on Bender and Tiraspol, the region’s two largest cities and their environs, the Transnistria campaign will build on a highly effective series of public awareness activities carried out throughout the country in 2004 and 2005 as part of USAID’s $4 million Strengthening Tuberculosis Control in Moldova Project, which was launched by AIHA in September 2003. Posters, brochures, and fliers detailing tuberculosis symptoms and encouraging people to seek treatment at the earliest signs of TB will be widely distributed and educational public service announcements will be broadcast on television and radio stations.

To reach the broadest possible audience, AIHA has convened a group of TB specialists and family doctors who will visit different enterprises in Bender and Tiraspol and neighboring villages to help educate citizens about tuberculosis, its symptoms, and how it can be prevented and treated. AIHA also trained two groups of students from local medical colleges to conduct peer education on TB at local schools and colleges. Professors from medical colleges in Bender and Tiraspol will work with the student volunteers to oversee the quality of the seminars and provide support as needed. Additionally, in an effort to increase media coverage and improve public information on TB, AIHA will organize a contest for the best tuberculosis-related news stories produced by Transnistria’s journalists.

Concurrent with the Transnistria campaign, AIHA will organize a number of activities to support the previous public awareness campaigns carried out in Balti and Chisinau. These will include the distribution of informational materials to students from seven universities during special seminars conducted by a group of AIHA trainers and the broadcast of five TB-related programs on Balti Teleradio.

The USAID/AIHA Strengthening Tuberculosis Control in Moldova project focuses on fortifying Moldova’s network of TB laboratories, ameliorating the nation’s ability to deal with TB at the primary care level, improving surveillance capacity to track tuberculosis and the spread of multi-drug resistant strains of the disease, and increasing public awareness about TB symptoms, treatment, and prevention.

Created in 1992 by a consortium of major healthcare provider associations and professional medical education organizations, AIHA establishes and manages twinning partnerships between health-related institutions in the United States and their counterparts in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, and the Caribbean. Since its inception, AIHA has supported more than 120 partnerships linking dedicated volunteers in the United States with communities, institutions, and individual colleagues overseas in a concerted effort to improve health service delivery in countries with limited resources. Operating under various cooperative agreements and grants from US and international donor agencies including the United States Agency for International Development (USAID); the US Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA); the World Health Organization (WHO); the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; and Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ), AIHA, its partnerships, and complementary programs represent one of the US healthcare sector’s most coordinated responses to global health issues. Support for the HIV/AIDS Twinning Center is provided by HRSA, a leading provider of HIV/AIDS care and treatment services to underserved populations in resource-poor settings in the United States and, more recently, throughout the world.

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