Global Health Projects: Uganda
Supporting Public Sector Workplaces to Expand Action and Responses Against HIV/AIDS (SPEAR) Project (2008–2013)
Client/Agency
United States Agency for International Development
Description
Background
World Vision International (WVI), in partnership with RTI, is leading a five-year effort to improve the delivery of HIV-related programs in the Ugandan public sector workplace.
The public sector is Uganda's largest employer and is profoundly affected by the threat that HIV/AIDS poses particularly to young and middle-aged adults at the peak of productivity. It cripples productivity through absenteeism and the death of workers and their relatives, while increasing expenditures for health care and recruitment of new personnel.
Activities and Results
RTI is collaborating with four ministries—Education, Internal Affairs, Local Government, and Public Service—to develop HIV/AIDS policies and provide HIV prevention, care, and treatment services to employees and their families. RTI is analyzing each ministry's HIV/AIDS policy environment, along with employees' knowledge, attitudes, and use of current HIV-related services.
Policy improvements will address issues such as nondiscrimination, gender equality, confidentiality, prevention and care, and maintaining the employment relationship as long as infected employees are able to do so.
SPEAR will emphasize the actions needed to make the policies operational. For example, the project will collaborate with the ministries to develop work plans and allocate resources that support counseling and testing services at employment sites. SPEAR will also train ministry champions to conduct anti-stigma and discrimination campaigns.
Expanding Access to Quality HIV Prevention, Care and Support Services in the Ugandan Military (2008-2011)
Client
U.S. Department of Defense HIV/AIDS Prevention Program (DHAPP)
Description
In collaboration with the U.S. Naval Health Research Center, RTI is assisting troops in Africa through epidemiologic research and the implementation of HIV-related services funded by the U.S. Department of Defense HIV/AIDS Prevention Program (DHAPP), which supports multiple efforts to reduce the incidence of HIV/AIDS among uniformed personnel.
RTI is partnering with the Uganda People's Defence Force (UPDF)-HIV/AIDS Control Programme to implement HIV-related services that respond to Uganda's high rate of tuberculosis (TB), a co-infection responsible for many HIV-related deaths. The project aims to increase access to HIV/AIDS-related services by military personnel and their families and will help soldiers and their dependents via HIV counseling and testing; prevention of mother-to-child transmission; better care and treatment of the infected; improved diagnosis and management of TB; and programs that mitigate the effects of HIV on orphans, other vulnerable children, and their families.
More Information
- Supporting HIV/AIDS Services for Military Personnel and Their Families in Uganda (brochure)
- Decentralizing CD4 Testing: The Experience of Using PointCare NOW CD4/CBC Testing Machines in Military Health Facilities, Republic of Uganda (report)
Expansion of Routine HIV Counseling and Testing and the Provision of Basic Care in Clinics and Hospitals in the Republic of Uganda (2004-2010)
Client/Agency
U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Global AIDS Program National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHSTP)
Description
Background
One of the key interventions that the fight against AIDS has been lacking has been the absence of an incentive for people to get tested. Currently, the majority of patients who are seen by health workers and who show signs of HIV/AIDS are not tested, because examiners typically have not been properly trained to recognize the symptoms. This project aims to change this by educating communities about the benefits of testing, in particular the incentives of better health and improved quality of life.
Trained health workers will be better able to offer or refer patients for testing, counseling, and treatment services. Better-educated patients, health care workers, and communities will provide an opportunity to avoid sickness and early death, and good prospects to deliver a higher quality of life in communities strongly affected by HIV/AIDS.
Purpose
To introduce routine HIV counseling and testing (RCT) to all patients presenting themselves at district hospitals and clinics in Uganda and provision of basic health care services to those testing HIV positive. The goal is to provide an integrated, sustainable HIV infection prevention and AIDS treatment and care service that breaks down individual and institutional barriers to HIV testing and establishes the conditions necessary to foster positive health-seeking and maintaining behaviors.
Activities and Results
RTI conducted training courses and a technical assistance needs assessment to assess current clinical resources, practices, and referral systems in each district relating to routine HIV counseling and testing, preventive, care, and treatment.
RTI partnered with a local nongovernmental organization (NGO), AIDS Information Center, and with the Ugandan AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Uganda AIDS Commission, Ministry of Health, District health authorities, and other stakeholders. Local experts from these organizations help to empower communities to continue to campaign for these initiatives through awareness building and direct health services.
Through workshops and seminars, 200 doctors, nurses, clinical officers, laboratory workers, and pharmaceutical technicians will be trained during the first year. In the following four years, over 1,000 will be trained.