182726 Lessons learned from Tshwane, South Africa for implementation across borders

Monday, October 27, 2008

Evasen Naidoo , Compass Project, Foundation for Professional Development, Pretoria, South Africa
Issues

This study was conducted in the City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality, South Africa. Although national and provincial statistical data is available, there is limited information regarding the HIV/AIDS epidemiological situation and the level of HIV/AIDS services provided to municipal communities. The overarching goal of the study was to identify the actual HIV/AIDS service needs of the community and assess if the current services actually met the community's needs.

Description

This was achieved by firstly conducting an epidemiological assessment to estimate the burden of HIV infection and AIDS as well as the number of individuals that require specific services. Secondly an audit of the available services in the community was conducted with community members used to identify and locate service providers.

Lessons Learned

We found that NGO's provide the most services (1175) followed by the Public Sector (547). NGO's provide the majority of awareness and empowerment services while the Public sector provides the majority of the treatment services. Overall the number of services identified did not match the estimated need. The project used GPS receivers for the first time and successfully mapped the location of the service providers.

Recommendations

This project successfully identified HIV/AIDS service providers within the Tshwane area which serves as an important basis from which improved community interventions and strategies can be built. The next step is to target the contributions of the private sector and medical aid schemes to obtain a holistic picture of HIV/service provision and the state of the epidemic.

Learning Objectives:
1.Identify the importance of contributions from the different sectors. 2.The challenges of conducting a study in a developing country. 3.The sucess of implementing GIS in health research.

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I was the Principal Investigator on the project and I am the Research Coordinator for the Compass Project
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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