Practitioner/Caregiver Training

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Training — and in some cases re-training healthcare workers who specialized in other clinical disciplines — is a critical element of AIHA’s approach to building health system capacity in transitioning and resource-constrained settings.

AIHA’s HIV/AIDS-related educational activities in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are carried out largely through the Regional Knowledge Hub for the Care and Treatment of HIV/AIDS in Eurasia. Other forms of training and technical assistance are conducted through specific partnerships and projects and may include professional exchanges, workshops, seminars, and study tours.

Our staff, partners, and expert consultants work hard to ensure the needs of host institutions, communities, and countries are met. We do this by collaborating closely with key stakeholders to design training curricula, materials, and learning opportunities tailored to specific settings in accordance with both national guidelines and international best practices.

In some cases, training curricula developed through AIHA’s programs have even been adopted as national standards and incorporated into the required coursework at medical and nursing colleges and schools of public health. In Ukraine, for example, the National Medical Academy for Postgraduate Education in Kyiv offers official certification to physicians who have successfully completed a series of training courses in the provision of antiretroviral therapy. Those who attend qualifying courses in St. Petersburg, Russia, may receive certification through Pavlov State Medical University. In the future, similar certification arrangements will be made available for individuals attending courses in Uzbekistan through the Tashkent Institute for Postgraduate Medical Education.

In sub-Saharan Africa, many HIV/AIDS Twinning Center partnerships focus on pre- and in-service training of medical workers and community-based caregivers.

A partnership linking Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia with Howard University in Washington, DC, for example, is strengthening pharmacy education, training, and clinical practice on a national level.

Twinning partners at Catholic University of Mozambique and the University of Pittsburgh have established St. Luke's Health Center — an HIV/AIDS and primary care facility and training center located in Beira — where mid- and lower-level healthcare workers are armed with the knowledge and skills they need to provide high quality HIV-related care and treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS.

The Polytechnic of Namibia and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences have launched the first four-year degree program for medical technologists in the country.

In Tanzania, a partnership between Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences School of Nursing and the University of California-San Francisco School of Nursing has developed an HIV/AIDS nursing curriculum, which is being implemented at all the nation's schools of nursing.

And, partners at the Federal School of Social Work in Enugu, the University of Nigeria-Nsukka Department of Social Work, and Hunter College School of Social Work are training community caregivers to improve services for orphans and vulnerable children in Nigeria.

These are only a few examples of how AIHA's HIV/AIDS Twinning Center is building much-needed capacity for training health and allied professionals, as well as community-based caregivers, to provide treatment and support services to people living with HIV/AIDS.

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