TB/HIV workshop set for IUATLD conference
HIV advocacy group turns energies to TB
The New York City-based Treatment Action Group (TAG) usually confines itself to advocating for HIV research and treatment. Recently, the group has seized upon TB as part of its principal focus. "As we began looking at opportunistic infections that afflict those with HIV in the international setting, we realized how much havoc TB is creating in that arena," says Jonathan Raymond, a consultant with the Treatment Action Group. "We saw that we needed to have a TB focus."
To that end, the group plans to present a satellite workshop on TB/HIV coinfection Oct. 4-5, as part of at the upcoming 33rd World Conference of the International Union Against TB and Lung Disease (IUATLD) to be held in Montreal. TAG hopes the workshop will serve as a template for similar activities, says Raymond, project coordinator for the workshop. The target audience for the presentation is community-based organizations and advocacy groups.
"We’re trying to reach people who can do community organization and education around the TB/HIV issue," Raymond says. But since some countries don’t have many nongovernmental organizations, the audience will have to be professionals in some cases, he adds. "We believe professionals already have more opportunities to learn about HIV/TB than folks at the community level, so community groups are still where we’re putting our resources," he adds.
A change in how TB is perceived
The workshop marks the way TB advocates are finally starting to get through with the message that TB and HIV are closely intertwined in the third world. "I think the HIV people have a lot to learn from what’s happening in the TB sector," Raymond says. "That’s especially true among organizations like STOP-TB [the global advocacy group headquartered at the World Health Organization]. There’s been simply an incredible amount of thought and organization put into getting people to buy into DOTS [the WHO-approved treatment strategy], and in setting up a global drug-procurement agency." More dialogue between HIV and TB advocates "will be very constructive for both sides," he adds.
The workshop is conceived not only as an educational experience, but also as a pilot for similar workshops. Raymond says TAG hopes community-based groups will use the workbook and manuals TAG plans to produce, and use them to recreate similar workshops at a community or regional level. In a follow-up session to be held Oct. 6-9, feedback and criticism will be solicited and incorporated into material to be produced.
The aims of the workshop include the following:
• to educate patient representatives on various aspects of TB/HIV coinfection research, care, prevention, and treatment; to empower patient community representatives to mobilize and disseminate information;
• to give patient community representatives the skills needed to understand clinical trials, and pro-vide input into operational and research programs;
• to begin to create an ad hoc TB/HIV international community advisory board to assist STOP-TB;
• to introduce patient community representatives to country national TB program officers, WHO, and other influential bilateral and non-governmental representatives.
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