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That鈥檚 the message from the World 午夜福利1000集合 Organization, which this week met health ministers from 50 countries in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to discuss how to solve the desperate shortage of medical personnel in countries stricken with HIV. Their suggestion is to pass on key tasks to medical staff, and even patients themselves who, although less qualified, have valuable first-hand knowledge of how HIV treatment regimes work.
鈥淲e hope health ministers will accept the concept and implement it on a massive scale,鈥� says Badara Samb, coordinator of the WHO鈥檚 鈥渢ask-shifting鈥� initiative. In Addis Ababa, he presented results showing that such schemes are already working well in countries such as Haiti and Uganda, as well as Malawi, where there is only one doctor per 7435 patients with HIV or AIDS. Compare this with the one doctor per 0.6 patients in the UK or US.
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The idea behind task-shifting is to lighten the load of overstretched doctors and nurses. In Malawi, for example, nurses have been administering antiretroviral therapies previously given only by higher-qualified clinical officers.
Samb says the evidence backs task-shifting provided there is adequate training, supervision and money. 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 mean lower standards,鈥� he says. And allowing HIV-positive individuals to help others like themselves can give them new-found self-esteem and status.
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