Over the next 5 days, 60 health care practitioners including nurses and doctors will participate in a conference on the clinical management of HIV and aids. Conference organizers hope to explain to share best practices for treating patients during the various stages of the infection. The Ministry of Health's Dr. Paul Edwards says many medical professionals just don't know how to treat those living with HIV and Aids.
Dr. Paul Edwards, Ministry of Health
"When we look at the clinical management of HIV/Aids it is really only one of the pillars of responding to the epidemic here in Belize. We talk about care, we talk about support, we talk about prevention, and then we talk about treatment being a part of that component as well. We have developed our protocol in the year 2003, we have the guidelines, however we have doctors in the system who have not been trained and there specific areas where we have gaps and it is with this intention then that we are training those doctors in specific areas considering now that we have more than twelve testing sites throughout the country. If we have the sites, we want to provide the services there. When the program first started, people from out-district had to come to Belize; that is when you talk about the pilot project. Now we have decentralized so as to make the services more accessible to individuals and they are able to receive the care and attention at the place of where they live."
The five day conference is being held in collaboration with PAHO and the Global Fund.
