RESEARCH ARTICLE
Strengthening Healthcare Capacity Through a Responsive, Country-Specific, Training Standard: The KITSO AIDS Training Program’s Sup-port of Botswana’s National Antiretroviral Therapy Rollout
Christine Bussmann, Philip Rotz, Ndwapi Ndwapi, Daniel Baxter, Hermann Bussmann, C. William Wester, Patricia Ncube, Ava Avalos, Madisa Mine, Elang Mabe, Patricia Burns, Peter Cardiello, Joseph Makhema , Richard Marlink*
Article Information
Identifiers and Pagination:
Year: 2008Volume: 2
First Page: 10
Last Page: 16
Publisher ID: TOAIDJ-2-10
DOI: 10.2174/1874613600802010010
Article History:
Received Date: 5/12/2008Revision Received Date: 30/1/2008
Acceptance Date: 12/2/2008
Electronic publication date: 29/2/2008
Collection year: 2008
open-access license: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/), which permits unrestrictive use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
In parallel with the rollout of Botswana’s national antiretroviral therapy (ART) program, the Botswana Ministry of Health established the KITSO AIDS Training Program by entering into long-term partnerships with the Botswana–Harvard AIDS Institute Partnership for HIV Research and Education and others to provide standardized, country-specific training in HIV/AIDS care. The KITSO training model has strengthened human capacity within Botswana’s health sector and been indispensable to successful ART rollout. Through core and advanced training courses and clinical mentoring, different cadres of health care workers have been trained to provide high-quality HIV/AIDS care at all ART sites in the country. Continuous and standardized clinical education will be crucial to sustain the present level of care and successfully address future treatment challenges.
