International Activities
HIV Consortium For Partnerships in Asia and the Pacific
The Third TAQAS Training Workshop
WHO Workshop On The Use Of Quality Control Samples In Blood Donor Testing in Iran
The Third TAQAS Training WorkshopTREAT Asia (Therapeutics Research, Education, and AIDS Training in Asia) is a network of clinics, hospitals, and research institutions working to ensure the safe and effective delivery of HIV/AIDS treatments throughout Asia and the Pacific. Facilitated by amfAR, TREAT Asia seeks to strengthen HIV/AIDS care, treatment, and management skills among health care professionals through education and training programs developed by experts in the region (www.amfar.org/cgi-bin/iowa/asia/about/index).
Part of the role of the TREAT Asia Network is the evaluation of HIV drug resistance in the Asian region. The TREAT Asia Network aims is to facilitate surveillance for antiretroviral (ARV)-resistant HIV-1 virus across subtypes and to monitor the development of resistance in individuals receiving ARV therapy. As part of this programme, the NRL delivers an on-going external quality assessment scheme (EQAS) known as TREAT Asia Quality Assessment Scheme (TAQAS) to laboratories in the region that perform HIV genotypic resistance testing (genotyping) for this surveillance and patient management. Laboratories participating in TAQAS test two EQAS panels per annum and come together for in an annual workshop where participants met with the TAQAS provider, experts in HIV genotyping, and the TREAT Asia Laboratory Network, to discuss testing differences and difficulties, methods for improvement of HIV genotyping, and the future directions of TAQAS.
On October 15, 2008 laboratory participants, providers and members of the TAQAS Working Group met in Bangkok for the third TAQAS workshop. Participants from 18 laboratories representing 10 countries in the Asian region reviewed and discussed HIV genotyping methodologies, nucleotide sequence quality, and the outcomes and future directions of the TAQAS programme. Throughout the workshop there was a high level of enthusiasm, engagement and exchange of ideas as the Laboratory Scientists, most of whom perform the HIV genotyping, presented their methodologies and issues encountered in HIV genotyping. Other presentations were given by David Sayer, Conexio Genomics, who demonstrated the importance of nucleotide sequence quality as the basis for high quality HIV genotyping test outcome; and Sally Land, NRL, who summarised the results of the TAQAS and laboratories gave feedback on their experience with the TAQAS. Philip Cunningham, National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical, Rami Kantor, Brown University and David Katzenstein, Stanford reviewed and lead discussion on the development of research plans for participating laboratories, including the validation of dry blood and plasma spots for HIV genotyping.
The team at TREATAsia in Bangkok went to great lengths to ensure the workshop ran very smoothly, and all participants and presenters needs were accommodated.
Outcomes from the 3rd TAQAS workshop will be formalized and, where appropriate, implemented by the TAQAS Steering Committee.
WHO Workshop On The Use Of Quality Control Samples In Blood Donor Testing in Iran
Sandy Walker and Scott Read recently served as short-term consultants to the World Health Organisation (WHO) to conduct a workshop on the use of quality control samples in blood donor testing. The workshop was a collaboration between the WHO, the Iranian Blood Transfusion Organisation (IBTO) and the NRL and took place in Tehran, The Islamic Republic of Iran between the 9th and 13th November 2005.
The IBTO is a non-profit governmental network of blood donation centres serving a population of over 70 million. The IBTO collects blood donations from each of Iran's 28 provinces and conducts manually-performed screening for transfusion-transmitted infections (TTI) before the blood products are distributed to more than 5000 hospitals nationwide.
Recently the IBTO under the direction of the Deputy Manager and Technical Director Dr A Talebian implemented a national quality control programme for all IBTO blood centres. The programme participants return all QC results to the IBTO headquarters in Tehran where the data are analysed.
The purpose of the workshop was to discuss a wide range of QC concepts including statistics used in quality control testing, control charts and control rules and investigating variation in QC results. The workshop also covered topics associated with quality control, including quality assurance, quality management and testing strategies.
The workshop was attended by a quality officer from each of the 28 provincial blood donation centres, the Quality Control Manager of IBTO, Dr S. Amini, and the OH&S Manager of IBTO Mr Mostafa Moghaddam. Dr Amini and Mr Moghaddam also provided fluent sequential translation of the lectures from English to Farsi.
At the end of the workshop participants were asked to complete a questionnaire designed to assess the overall impact of the workshop in terms of relevance, educational value and interest. In all categories surveyed, the majority of participants rated each category as either "excellent" or "good".
Following the completion of the workshop the IBTO invited Sandy and Scott to the southern city of Shiraz (in the Fars Province) to visit the provincial blood donation centre managed by Dr Torabe Jahromi.
The IBTO and the NRL will continue to collaborate in future projects. Current discussions between the two groups include the participation of thirty of the IBTO screening laboratories in the NRL's External Quality Assessment Scheme (EQAS) and NRL's provision of external auditing services.
On behalf of the NRL, Sandy and Scott would like to thank the group at IBTO for the generous and warm hospitality they received during their time in Iran.
