Highlights - CHART-CCAS-CDC 1st Joint Meeting

CHART and CCAS Joined Forces to Train Health Care Professionals in the Caribbean:

The CHART-CCAS-CDC Joint meeting and 6th CCAS HIV/AIDS workshop was held at the St.Kitts Marriott Resort and Royal Beach Casino from 23 to 28 August 2009. This  joint meeting and workshop marked the new training partnership established between the Caribbean HIV/AIDS Regional Training network (CHART) and the Caribbean Cytometry & Analytical Society (CCAS) The focus of these two organisations since their inception has been clinical care and management training and HIV laboratory diagnostics capacity building respectively.

 The CDC was Instrumental in the CHART-CCAS Collaboration:

The Caribbean Regional Office for the Global AIDS Programme (GAP) of the Centers for Disease and Control (CDC) located in Barbados and under the leadership of Dr. Shirley Lee Lecher, played a key role in the collaboration between the two leading HIV training organisations in the region. The CDC assisted with technical and financial resources and also took the lead in a break out session that focused on key laboratory issues such as quality assurance, accreditation, procurement, HIV rapid test kits evaluation and algorithm formulation and the implications and advantages of the ISO 15189 quality management system. The workshop comprised of 60 lectures over five days and two break-out session days. The main sessions have received 24 hours of CME credits from the Medical Council of Jamaica. CME certificates can be requested from the info [at] caribcas [dot] org (CCAS Secretariat).

Commitment to the Cause:

The meeting was opened under the patronage of the Governor General of St.Kitts and Nevis, Sir Cuthbert Sebastian and remarks were delivered by the Honourable Minister of Health of St. Kitts and Nevis, Mr. Rupert Herbert. The official welcome address was given by none other than  His Excellency Honourable Dr. Denzil Douglas,  Prime Minister St. Kitts and Nevis and Chairman of the Pan Caribbean Partnership against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP). 147 international, regional and local delegates and 40 faculty speakers from the UK, North America, Canada, South America, Africa and the Caribbean region participated in the meeting/workshop. 20 Caribbean countries were represented at this meeting.

CCAS Distinguished Lecturer:

The CCAS Distinguished Lecture honoured  a man who is considered a giant in the field of HIV/AIDS. Professor George Janossy, awarded the “Hero in Medicine Prize” in 2002 for his lifetime contribution to AIDS research, was involved in the pioneering work that described the natural history and immunohistology of HIV disease, along with others, including the CD4 test that now forms the basis of the routine laboratory tests done to monitor disease progression. In th ncluding the e Caribbean, Professor Janossy has been a founding member of the scientific steering committee and leading faculty member of this HIV workshop. In the past decade he has dedicated himself to the people of the developing world, championing practical and above all affordable diagnostic and therapeutic interventions to help sustain human life in the face of killer diseases like HIV.

Professionals represented:

This workshop truly reflected the theme: Multidisciplinary team approaches to monitoring and treating persons living with HIV, in that attendees represented most fields that come together to work as a team when providing individualistic care, treatment and support of persons living with HIV and AIDS.  The major professional categories represented were laboratory scientists (36.6%), followed by nurses (20.7%) and physicians (18.3%).

For the very first time the workshop enjoyed interactive sessions through an audience response system, compliments of the the International Training and Education Center on HIV (I-TECH), which enabled for powerful data collection. Delegates were asked to anonymously respond to questions and the system collected the answers. Glimpses of some of the data collected is displayed here.

Delegates were asked to indicate the major impediment to accessing care and support in their home country's. The responses are displayed in the adjacent graph. A total of 94 persons responded and 43.6% perceived stigma and discrimination to be the most significant impediment.


Procurement of diagnostic reagents and drugs:

Delegates were asked through the audience response system to indicate whether their respective country has experienced problems in procurement of reagents and supplies from diagnostic vendor companies and with antiretroviral drugs from pharmaceutical companies. The data suggests that a greater percentage of persons in the audience experienced problems with procurement of diagnostic reagents then drugs. CCAS with the assistance of the Clinton Foundation will be utilizing the data gathered at the workshop to approach diagnostic vendor companies with procurement and other major issues faced by persons in the region.

The first Professional Skills and Competencies database of health care professionals dealing with HIV/AIDS in the Caribbean:

Dr. Christoph Larsen has designed and hosts the CCAS website through his company synaLinQ. He has been working tirelessly in redesigning the structure of the database having paid particular attention to data security and sharing issues. Professor Clive Landis, CCAS President announced at the CCAS Extraordinary General Meeting that the database can be made available to external organizations on a fees basis. Caribbean organisations that wish to formally partner with the CCAS and agree to the data sharing terms and conditions may be given free access to the database in the future.

Networking:

For the first time in 6 years the CCAS workshop was attended by a representative, Edward Emmanuel from the PANCAP, thus leading to the setting up of a close working relationship with this co-ordinating and implementing body for the region. PANCAP has succeeded in raising the political profile of AIDS in the Caribbean, mobilizing resources, establishing a culture for collaboration and coordination and creating an understanding about the Caribbean epidemic within the global context.  This meeting felt the presence of the International AIDS Society (IAS), with IAS Governing Council Members   Dr. Celso Ferreira Ramos-Filho the Latin American Representative from Brazil and Professor Celia Christie-Samuels the Caribbean Representative from Jamaica. This workshop enabled fostering of linkages with the Clinton Foundation to address issues faced by the region with diagnostic vendor companies. Being the largest HIV/AIDS technical workshop in the region it gave the opportunity to organisations such as the Caribbean Med Labs Foundation (CMLF) with Valerie Wilson and Wendy-Kitson Piggott and the CARICOM Regional Organisation for Standards and Quality (CROSQ) represented at this meeting by Giselle Guevara to interact with key persons to further the discussions regarding having a Caribbean Laboratory Network established and laboratory accreditation. Other organizations not previously a part of the workshop include the I-TECH with Chris Behrens representing from the University of Washington,  the OECS Secretariat's HIV/AIDS Programme Unit (HAPU) with Dr. James St.Catherine and Kalawatee Dowath from St.Lucia,  Non-governmental organizations such as the AIDS Foundation of Barbados, The Caribbean HIV/AIDS Alliance, Positive Patient support groups such as CARE (Comfort-Assist-Reach out-Educate) and CRN+ (Caribbean Regional Network) as part of the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+).

Thanks to the Local Host Country Organising Committee:

CCAS wishes to acknowledge the local organising committee under the leadership of Ms. Jasmin Hanley for their efforts towards hosting this joint meeting and workshop.

7th CCAS HIV/AIDS workshop:

The next Joint meeting and training workshop will be held in Barbados, from 22nd to 27th August 2010. More information will be made available on the CCAS website in due course.


Summary:

The success of this meeting is attributed to the dedication, participation, strength and support rendered  from our faculty speakers, organisers, delegates, sponsoring companies, philanthropists and other humanitarians. I would like to thank you all who participated and supported this joint meeting and CCAS in its 6th year and as Dr. Jeanne Beckles in her beautiful musical piece states the work that we all as health care professionals do, we do it for each other, the members of our society and in turn for God Almighty. God Bless us all.