I-TECH India facilitated the upgrade of an ART Centre in the Champhai district in Mizoram to an ART+ Centre, which can accommodate any advanced, second-line treatment needs of PLHIV in Champhai. Prior to the upgrade, clients in Champhai needing second-line treatment were referred to Aizwal, the state capital, for review by the State AIDS Clinical Expert Panel (SACEP). Following the upgrade, I-TECH India, in collaboration with state officials, facilitated a training for SACEP clinicians and ART+ Centre staff on national ART guidelines and SACEP procedures, which allows the SACEP team to now review cases in Champhai at the ART+ Centre instead of referring them to Aizwal.
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Community ART Refill Groups (CARGs) make ART available in community settings, such as non-governmental organizations (NGOs), community- and faith-based organizations (CBOs and FBOs), and prisons, to allow stable clients to access ART conveniently around their schedule. On 1 March 2019, as part of the effort to introduce various differentiated service delivery models in Northeast India, I-TECH India helped establish an institution-based refill model at Chavara Home, an FBO in Dimapur, Nagaland that has been providing care, support, and treatment services to people living with HIV (PLHIV) for more than a decade. There are currently 42 clients collecting ART through this model.
I-TECH India has developed and fielded through the National AIDS Control Organization with all states, the Quarterly Feedback Tool (QFT). The QFT is a comprehensive dashboard of actionable program indicators that provides feedback to inform strategic interventions and data quality improvement. To push data-driven management at antiretroviral therapy (ART) clinics, I-TECH India worked with the State AIDS Control Society of Maharashtra to share the QFT with all 72 sites (208,974 ART clients). This is the first step towards national site-level monitoring, which promises focused and quality initiatives for HIV treatment and care.
The world is changing at a rapid pace and what is driving the change is the new means of communicating with each other. Educations systems are no exceptions, they too are changing at a great speed and technology is replacing a lot of things.
Distance education is considered as a blessing to the students and professionals who want to study further while continuing with their jobs or who might not be able to attend a full time course for many reasons. Today, e-learning is a part of the distance educational system and it holds an important place and is a boon to many learners.
Higher education can no more be confined within the boundaries of the institutions. The dynamism of the education system and the changing needs of the society has forced distance learning and e-learning to come together.
Let’s take a look at how e-learning helps in distance education
Cutting across the boundaries:
One most important advantage of e-learning is to be able to access the information from anywhere and anytime. It is one of the best means to gather knowledge in an interactive way. Students can listen to live lectures and also interact easily with the teaching faculty without any hurdles and this is recreating a traditional classroom environment though virtually.
A boon for self-learners:
Distance learning courses or programs often help students or professionals to study according to their comfort zones. With e-learning, online education has redefined convenience for both the teachers and students. With the rapid adoption of smartphones and increasing dependence on data, e-learning has opened up a new world of mobile based learning. This has come as a boon for the self-learners and has allowed them to gather the course content even before they decide to opt for the course.
Audio and video conference:
Both audio and video conference can be implemented in e-learning courses. The distance education system uses a blend of technologies like interactive faculty chat sessions, online virtual classes, quizzes and webinars. A shared whiteboard also lets a group of people communicate easily by highlighting, pointing or even drawing. The programs can be easily demonstrated to remote learners with software applications having sharing system.
E-learning has become extremely popular and the journey of education in India has changed into learning that is instant, self-driven and on the go. Distance education has experienced a sea change over decades and it is the only way to sustain a better future.
I-TECH India is working in Mumbai to increase access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV-positive prison inmates. The Mumbai District AIDS Control Society has set up integrated counselling and testing centres at two major prisons in Mumbai. There have been 31,189 tests conducted so far with 574 of those being identified as HIV positive cases. I-TECH India provided formal training to the prison staff and the ART centre to initiate a differentiated model of care. In December, a Link ART Centre model was launched for the prison inmates that provides services like monthly drugs dispensation, counselling, and other support to improve their retention through quality continuum of care. So far, 25 clients have been linked out from both jails.
I-TECH India, in collaboration with FHI360, organized five batches of training for ART, targeted intervention (TI), and OST counsellors on improving the quality of care, support, and treatment (CST) services for key populations (KPs) during November and December. There were 200 participants from three North-eastern states: Manipur, Mizoram & Nagaland. Technical sessions on ART treatment, VL, harm reduction, sex and sexuality, understanding KPs, and counselling were facilitated by State AIDS Control Societies (SACS), I-TECH, and FHI360.
I-TECH India supported the National Review Meeting of CST Services held on 15-17 January 2019 for all the SACS in India. The meeting was hosted by the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) and Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, in coordination with CDC and I-TECH. I-TECH attended the meeting with state-level officials from all SACS, regional coordinators, technical experts, regional procurement and logistics coordinators. Representatives from partner organizations like WHO India, CDC India, UNAIDS, Clinton Health Access Initiative, SHARE, Alliance India and its SRs/partners (NERO, NCPI+, AIRO, GSNP+, TNP+, HLFPPT, KHPT, KNP+, Lepra society, NMP+), SAATHII, FHI 360, TISS, Plan India and its SRs (TCI Express, JSI) were also in attendance. The objective of the meeting was to review the progress made in the CST program and focus on new strategies adopted in the last two years such as the Test & Treat All policy, Mission Sampark, and differentiated service delivery models (DSDM) while addressing the operational and technical issues at the state level. I-TECH and SHARE India collaboratively presented on learnings from DSDM at demonstration sites. I-TECH also provided support to NACO in planning and implementation (including logistics) for this review meeting and technical assistance in data analysis, report writing, and documentation of the event.