To strengthen efforts to combat HIV in Central America, the Capacity Project is collaborating with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), an international public health agency that also serves as the Americas regional office for the World Health Organization (WHO).

Project staff participated in a two-day meeting in November with PAHO’s HIV Program officers in Washington, DC. The meeting established the basis for collaboration between PAHO and the Project to adapt, disseminate and use WHO’s modules on Integrated Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI). The Project will support printing of the modules, a Central America Regional Training Workshop and in-country dissemination workshops.

In December, Project staff participated in a PAHO-sponsored regional consultation in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on teaching and community extension of the nursing profession in prevention, care and treatment of HIV. The consultation, attended by heads of nursing associations and nursing schools throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean, provided an opportunity for participants to present and review data on the extent to which HIV issues are included in nursing curricula theory and practice in their countries. Regional subgroups worked together to identify core curriculum content and actions that nursing schools and associations should undertake to implement the IMAI package when the prototype Spanish-language version is released. Country representatives identified next steps toward implementation of IMAI and established a regional network of nurses working in HIV.

The Project is providing assistance to USAID's Central America Regional Program (G-CAP) to improve the capacity of the region’s health workforce to deliver comprehensive HIV/AIDS treatment and care, including TB co-infection.

January 2007