In late October, two ID-CARE staff members conducted a mission in Nairobi County, Kenya for the recently approved research study “Born to be healthy: Exploring the factors that promote or inhibit the implementation of the HIV early infant diagnosis algorithm in Nairobi County, Kenya”. This study is embedded within the project Born to be healthy: prevention of mother-to-child transmission and contrast the spread of HIV at community level. The BTBH project is co-financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, a “Synergic Initiatives” with the Global Fund and coordinated by Medicus Mundi Italia in collaboration with mothers2mothers (M2M), the University of Verona, and NO ONE OUT.
The objective of the research study is to identify barriers to early diagnosis of HIV in newborns and children in the intervention area. The results from the research will provide possible solutions to late diagnoses and will be used to improve services for the prevention and timely diagnosis of HIV.
The week-long mission of the ID-CARE representatives Fabiana Arieti and Maddalena Cordioli, had multiple objectives. They presented the research study to the County and Sub-County AIDS coordinators where they highlighted the study’s objectives, methodology and the expected results and potential impact for future interventions. Another purpose of the mission was organising training sessions for the local researchers and staff, including a presentation of the study tools, as well as the ethics requirements and their importance when conducting research. Several site visits to the health facilities involved in the research study were also conducted. These were paramount to evaluate the performance of the data collection tools and the data entry software. The ID-CARE team identified some areas for amendments to improve the functionality of the data collection tools and the entry of the data.
We would like to thank our project partners Medicus Mundi Italia, NO ONE OUT and mothers2mothers for the great collaboration as well as the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and the Global fund for funding this project. We are proud to be working for enhanced healthcare and improved living standards for individuals living with HIV.
Find out more about the Born to be healthy project here: https://www.id-care.net/projects/born-to-be-healthy
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