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December 14, 2007
Is Global HIV Care Expanding?
Global health care may be widening in response to the HIV epidemic, says a World Health Organization (WHO) report published in the December 13 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine (plusnews.org, 12/12).
Analyzing the report, the PlusNews web service notes that in many sub-Saharan African countries—such as Malawi—staff shortages create a barrier to proper care, with medical support staff seeing as many as 200 patients a day. WHO has already implemented training programs in 22 countries to train support staff in basic surgical procedures to alleviate this strain on specialized medical personnel.
The article notes a shortage of 4 million workers in the medical field worldwide, and that WHO is working to fortify the workforce’s HIV knowledge through treatment and prevention programs. The organization is also focusing on retaining existing workers and “task shifting”—which would allow doctors to delegate tasks to less specialized medical staff.
The plan, which is called Treat, Train, Retain, will be launched in mid-January 2008 at the first-ever worldwide summit on task shifting, in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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