Russia HIV/AIDS Treatment, Care, and Support Project

What We Do › HIV/AIDS › Russia HIV/AIDS TCS Project

AIHA’s HIV/AIDS Treatment, Care, and Support Project in Russia builds on the success of four partnerships established by AIHA in 2004 with USAID support. These partnerships linked US institutions with significant experience providing high quality medical and support services to people living with HIV with their counterparts in Russia. Working together, partners developed replicable HIV treatment and care models in the target regions focusing on four main areas:

1. Care coordination and case management;
2. Patient management and adherence;
3. Patient access and retention; and
4. HIV and TB detection and treatment

AIHA provided direct technical assistance and support to these partnerships, conducting clinical trainings, replicating our model PMTCT Program, establishing HIV/AIDS Information Resource Centers to enhance use of information and communication technology at partner institutions, and developing or adapting Russian-language publications on HIVAIDS. In addition, AIHA and its partners collaborated closely with local health administrations to ensure sustainability of model programs developed through the partnerships.

With support from Russia’s national HIV/AIDS program and international donor organizations such as the Global Fund, availability of antiretroviral medications has increased dramatically. Consequently, in 2006 AIHA began rolling out successful HIV treatment, care, and support models in the PEPFAR priority regions of St. Petersburg and Orenburg Oblast through its HIV/AIDS Twinning Center program, which is supported by PEPFAR through USAID/Russia. AIHA’s scale-up activities in these regions largely replicate and expand on partnership accomplishments.

Clinical trainings on ART and opportunistic infections — coupled with onsite mentoring and other support activities provided by US partners — are successfully building district and regional networks of well qualified healthcare providers. Other key focus areas include palliative care and treatment of patients co-infected with tuberculosis or hepatitis, as well as ART adherence support with focus on patients who are injecting drug users and quality assurance through chart audits and
patient satisfaction surveys.

HIV case management is also a major focus of the project. AIHA developed a standard training course on case management and more than 230 specialists have been trained.

Key project accomplishments as of October 2009 include:

• > Partnership models support more than 4,427 patients currently 
•    receiving ART in St. Petersburg and Orenburg
• > 2,898 healthcare providers and allied professionals trained and
•    mentored on provision of HIV care, including ART and
  
•    management of opportunistic infections
• > 100 percent of primary level infectious disease specialists in St.
•    Petersburg trained to manage ART
• > AIDS Training and Educational Centers (ATECs) established in St.
•    Petersburg and Orenburg
• > 120 Russian professionals completed the ATEC training-of-
•    trainers program to date; 22 of them became master trainers
• > Implemented a three-level educational program to strengthen the
•    role of nurses in HIV/AIDS care; 65 nurses have been
  
•    trained in the basics of HIV infection, 19 completed two sequential
•    program courses, and 7 participated in professional
  
•    exchanges to the US partnership sites
• > Counseling and testing services improved and expanded at
•    project sites
• > Developed “Case Management Guidelines for Professionals,” a
•    booklet on best practices in HIV case management

For a PDF overview of the Russia HIV/AIDS Treatment, Care, and Support Project in both English and Russian, please click here.

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