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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

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

 
Program will strengthen HIV-related lab capacity and training programs at five institutions spanning Tanzania  

WASHINGTON, DC, and PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA, September 13, 2006—The American International Health Alliance (AIHA) is pleased to announce the formation of a new partnership through its HIV/AIDS Twinning Center Program that will support the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief by helping strengthen Tanzania’s laboratory capacity to diagnose and monitor HIV/AIDS. 

Colorado’s Boulder Community Hospital will partner with five clinical sites in Tanzania and their affiliated laboratories. These sites—Muhimbili Hospital in Dar es Salaam, which serves as the national reference lab; and four zonal labs in Bugando Hospital in Mwanza; Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center in Moshi; Ikonda Mission Hospital in Iringa; and Mnazi Mmoja Hospital in Zanzibar—also serve as a laboratory sciences training centers.  

The partners will work together to build laboratory capacity through peer-to-peer collaboration and mentoring thereby playing a key role in strengthening Tanzania’s ability to provide much-needed care and treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS. Key objectives include improving the quality and scope of HIV-related training on the use of automated laboratory equipment and rapid testing procedures and facilitating implementation of sound laboratory policies, guidelines, and standards.  

As a member of Frontline Laboratories, a larger lab network anchored by the Mayo Clinic, Boulder Community Hospital draws on a wealth of experience and strategic alliances, including links to Beacon HIV/AIDS Clinic in Boulder. The Hospital has long engaged in a broad range of international outreach and development work, including being involved in an AIHA-supported partnership with Odessa, Ukraine. The Hospital is fully accredited by the College of American Pathologists and the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations, as well as being a member of the American Society of Clinical Pathologists, the College of American Pathologists, and the Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute. 

Funded by the US Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the HIV/AIDS Twinning Center mobilizes and coordinates the resources of US healthcare providers to effectively build capacity to reduce HIV infection rates and provide care to those infected with, or affected by, HIV/AIDS in the Emergency Plan’s 15 focus countries in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean.  

For more information on the HIV/AIDS Twinning Center, visit http://www.twinningagainstaids.org/. 

Created in 1992 by a consortium of major healthcare provider associations and professional medical education organizations, AIHA establishes and manages twinning partnerships and 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 125 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 the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), AIHA, its partnerships, and complementary programs represent one of the US healthcare sector’s most coordinated responses to global health issues.

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