African Regional Capacity-Building Hub – International Association of Providers of AIDS Care

Strengthening Clinician Capacity to Manage HBV, HCV, and HIV in Africa

HIV and viral hepatitis impose a substantial health burden on sub-Saharan Africa!

Nearly 26 million people are living with HIV in the region, yet only 11 million are on treatment. HBV is highly endemic in the region, yet access to vaccination and treatment is limited. With an estimated 32 million people infected with HCV, sub-Saharan Africa has the highest burden of HCV disease in the world, yet most HCV-infected individuals lack access to treatments that can cure their disease. Building clinician capacity to optimally screen for, test, and treat people living with HIV and/or HBV and HCV is a public health priority at the center of the IAPAC African Regional Capacity-Building Hub’s mission.

The International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC) established its African Regional Capacity-Building Hub with a mission to strengthen clinician capacity around HBV, HCV, and HIV clinical management. The Hub’s work is advanced in collaboration with national, regional, and international stakeholders, and through a restricted educational grant from Gilead Sciences.

The Hub is aligned to assist with ongoing efforts to expand access to the HBV, HCV, and HIV screening, testing, prevention, care, and treatment on the African continent. The Hub’s 2015-2020 goals include:

Supporting countries to integrate World Health Organization (WHO), IAPAC, and other relevant normative guidance, including national guidelines, to strengthen their HBV, HCV, and/or HIV responses;
Increasing clinician capacity to implement HBV, HCV, and/or HIV normative guidance, along their respective continua, in specialized and primary care settings, based on needs specifically determined at clinical sites; and
Promoting continuing education and metrics-based certification as mechanisms to trigger continuing quality improvement, provide quality assurance, and address health workforce retention concerns.

IAPAC is the Hub’s Secretariat, and its association and academic partners are the International Association for the Study of the Liver (IASL), the Makerere University College of Health Sciences (Kampala, Uganda), and the University of Cape Town’s Division of Hepatology (South Africa).

Following are IAPAC resources to plan, coordinate, and conduct HBV-, HCV-, and HIV-themed in-service clinical management trainings based on IAPAC African Regional Capacity-Building curricula. Click on the relevant link below to download the required documentation.