HIV Consortium For Partnerships in Asia and the Pacific
The HIV Consortium for Partnerships in Asia and the Pacific is funded by AusAID to implement a three-year Program (2008-2011) aimed at strengthening the role of organisations and individuals to respond effectively to HIV. The Program supports organisations which have played key roles in the Australian HIV response to build strategic partnerships and linkages. It complements and adds value to programs supported by AusAID and other donors. The Program supports capacity building through partnerships. Activities are aimed at assisting partners to achieve long-term, self-sufficient and sustainable responses to HIV.
After a six-month workplanning and establishment phase, January-June 2008, the Consortium began implementation of its Year 1 Program Plan in July 2008.
The Program Plan is made up of 30 Program Components in Indonesia, Pacific, Greater Mekong, Timor Leste and Asia Pacific Regional.
Activities include:
> Assisting the organisational development and activities of established counterparts (i.e. healthcare worker organisations, health services, community or peerbased organisations, regional peak bodies, research organisations)
> Facilitating the development of counterparts through up-skilling individuals, loose networks and nascent organisations
> Supporting networking and collaboration within and across sectors, and across countries.
Indonesia
The NRL has partnered with the Clinton Foundation HIV / AIDS Initiative (CHAI) and the Directorate of Medical Support Services, Indonesian Ministry of Health (MOH) to build laboratory, testing and quality assurance programmes for Indonesia.
The programme will promote self sufficiency through the development of local expertise, improved processes and better infrastructure. This will be achieved by supporting key laboratories in selected provinces as central focal points in establishing and supporting a national network of laboratories. A key laboratory will be trained to provide EQAS to other Indonesian laboratories in the Country. Information collected in the Indonesian EQAS will highlight deficiencies in HIV testing and areas where laboratories require additional support. Additional training programmes will be targeted to resolve these deficiencies and provide continual improvement in HIV testing. The programme will then be rolled out by training other key laboratories in other regions of Indonesia. The idea is to train major province laboratories to lead the systems development – province by province.
From centre to left, Dr. Elizabeth Dax, Dr. Nani Nursianti, Dr. Bambang Widyapranata and Dr. Martha M. AkilaBetween 24 February and 3 March 2009 Dr Elizabeth Dax, NRL, Dr Martha M. Akila, MOH and Dr Bambang Widyapranata, CHAI, visited three Provincial Health Laboratories (PHLs) in Surabaya, Jakarta and Bandung. The team conducted an assessment of the laboratories to collect information about their laboratory and quality processes, testing strategies, staff knowledge and infrastructure. The NRL, CHAI and MOH will use this information to design a training programme and training materials for use at the first training workshop for the laboratories which is scheduled for May 2009.
The Asia Pacific Region
Regional HIV Laboratory Seminar 2008
The NRL has partnered with ASHM and St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney to deliver an annual Regional HIV Laboratory Seminar for a small number of carefully selected laboratory related personnel. The seminar is run adjacent to the ASHM annual conference, giving seminar participants the opportunity to attend both the conference and the seminar. Each year the seminar focuses on a particular aspect of the HIV laboratory processes. The Seminar aims to build and sustain long term quality assurance in regional testing standards
The specific objective of the 2008 Regional HIV Laboratory Seminar was to offer support in the use of HIV testing strategies, in particular those involving HIV rapid tests. This is of particular interest at present because many countries within the region are rolling out national testing strategies that use HIV rapid tests.
Fifteen delegates from 11 organisations participated in the Seminar including delegates form the Clinton Foundation HIV / AIDS Initiative (CHAI) and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC).
Delegates of the 2008 Regional HIV Laboratory Seminar.
Facilitators included Dr Elizabeth Dax (centre) and Sandy Walker (front, right), NRL; Mr Philip Cunningham (back, right), St Vincent's Hospital Sydney and Mr Duncan Blair (back, 4th from right), CHAI.
The Pacific
The NRL has partnered with the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) to assist with the implementation of new HIV testing strategies in all laboratories across the Pacific, followed by a roll-out to VCT centres.
The testing strategies proposed are based on strategies developed by World Health Organisation (WHO) and use simple rapid HIV tests. It is essential that the combination of tests chosen provides results that have a high predictive value i.e. a high likelihood that a final result arrived at from the combination results of two or three tests, is accurate. This is of particular importance in a population with a low prevalence of HIV such as the Pacific.The NRL is a member of the technical working group that has developed the protocol for the validation of the rapid tests. As a member of this group the NRL acts as the primary technical organisation providing laboratory advice on HIV serology testing to the region.
The NRL will conduct the validationof the HIV testing strategy on site. The validation will be conducted using samples that were collected from Pacific island countries that have been appropriately characterized and stored.
In addition, the NRL is in discussion with the SPC to determine other ways that it may support the implementation project to ensure the success of the strategies in the long-term.
NRL's programs through the HIV Consortium
