St. Petersburg AIDS Training and Education Center

From 2006 to 2008, AIHA worked in close collaboration with the St. Petersburg Medical Academy for Postgraduate Studies and affiliated clinical sites at the St. Petersburg AIDS Center and the Ust Izhora Clinical Center for Children and Women with HIV to establish the St. Petersburg AIDS Training and Education Center (ATEC) in Russia.

Developed with funding from USAID and supported by the Russian Ministry of Health and Social Development, this project represented a key step in the development of a unified framework for Russia’s national efforts to build the health system capacity necessary to provide high-quality care to PLHIV.

Officially opened in November 2006, the St. Petersburg ATEC and its clinical sites helped develop the institutional and human resource capacity Russia needed to reach its HIV/AIDS care and treatment goals through targeted training for physicians, nurses, and social workers. Training courses also targeted healthcare policymakers and clinic administrators, as well as allied care professionals ranging from psychologists and laboratory technicians to peer counselors and NGO representatives, to better ensure comprehensive, accessible care for PLHIV.

Classroom activities were augmented by onsite clinical training and mentoring to ensure proper acquisition of hands-on practical skills and, ultimately, quality of care.

With support from the Russian Healthcare Foundation — the Global Fund’s principle recipient in Russia— the St. Petersburg ATEC initially focused on building capacity in Altay, Bashkyrtostan, Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk, Kemerovo, Krasnodar, Perm, Rostov, Saratov, Sverdlovsk, Volgograd, and Ulyanovsk, which were designated priority areas under Global Fund’s round-four grants.

With support from other donors, courses were also provided to healthcare professionals striving to improve HIV/AIDS-related care and treatment elsewhere in Russia and in neighboring countries.

In 2008, the St. Petersburg ATEC’s activities transitioned to the Baltic ATEC.