Health Notes
Successful HIV/AIDS Testing Campaign in Suriname Shows Fingerprints of US Assistance
The National AIDS Program's (NAP) Know-Your-Status campaign
in Suriname that encourages voluntary HIV testing experienced
overwhelming success since its December 1 launch. NAP established
the Know-your-Status campaign to improve low voluntary testing
rates in the country. The campaign used television infomercials,
radio spots and newspaper ads to promote testing. As a result,
more people volunteered to be tested than in all of 2004 during
the first four weeks of the campaign.
USG HIV/AIDS assistance played a valuable role in fortifying the
capacity of Suriname's health care sector to handle the recent surge in
testing, which, according to the country director of the Pan-American
Health Organization, would not have been possible a year ago.
From June 2003 to March 2005, USAID funded a series of Voluntary Testing
and Counseling (VCT) trainings conducted by the Johns Hopkins health
organization JHPEIGO. USG funding trained 92 VCT providers from public,
private and NGO health care centers, 10 VCT trainers and two advanced
trainers who are qualified to teach other trainers. Surinamese trainers
certified by the USG program provided training to 27 Medical Mission
health care workers, who worked primarily in rural and interior regions
of the country during the summer of 2005 and December 2005. The total
number of trained and qualified VCT providers in Suriname now stands at
161. According to an advanced VCT trainer from the Dermatological
Services Unit, VCT providers play a critical role by guiding and
counseling patients through testing protocols. USG assistance,
according to the trainer, not only built an essential manpower base for
Suriname's HIV/AIDS testing regime, but also taught Surinamers necessary
skills to train as many VCT providers and additional trainers without
outside assistance.
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Date posted:
March 07, 2006
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