ICM and MKI: midwifery training in joint global HIV/AIDS initiative.

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World AIDS Day 2004, on 1 December, was the occasion for the International Confederation of Midwives (ICM) and the Medical Knowledge Institute (MKI) launching a joint global AIDS initiative, with work due to start in April 2005.

The initiative's overall goal is to prepare midwifery 'trainers of trainers' to develop and implement strategies for the training of midwives and other health workers. The five year programme, officially called 'Promotion of HIV and AIDS prevention, treatment, care and support', will have the aim of training, in all, an estimated 100,000 people in 38 countries worldwide. It has been developed by ICM and MKI with technical support from the World Health Organization (WHO).

A particular emphasis of the programme is the promotion of treatment, care and support for HIV-positive women and their children, as well as prevention of mother-to-child transmission. The Integrated Management of Adolescent and Adult Infections (IMAI), developed by WHO, forms part of the training materials that will be used.

At the end of the course the participants, on return to their countries, should be able to:

* Develop continuing education strategies to address the ongoing strengthening of knowledge, skills and practice in HIV and AIDS

* Conduct skill workshops in their countries to train midwives and other health care workers in prevention of the spread of HIV and AIDS as well as counselling, treatment, care and support of women and their infants living with HIV, using the WHO IMAI modules

* Identify up-to-date information on HIV and AIDS

* Establish follow-up and sustainability procedures used for rolling out the programme in their countries

* Produce a localised, measurable action plan.

Kathy Herschderfer, Secretary General of the ICM, commented: "In the present global crisis caused by HIV/AIDS, we see that the most vulnerable groups suffer the most. Midwives throughout the world confront this disease daily in their work, in their communities and in their families and they understand the suffering brought on by HIV/AIDS.

'We welcome this collaboration with MKI because their humanitarian vision combined with the knowledge and experience their leading specialists bring to the project will help provide midwives from our member associations with the additional skills needed to combat HIV/AIDS where it has the greatest impact and where a...