AEGiS-14IAC: Training program for the local pharmacist on syndromic case management can be very helpful in STD/HIV prevention program: Bangladesh experience.

14th International AIDS Conference

Barcelona, Spain - July 7-12, 2002

Training program for the local pharmacist on syndromic case management can be very helpful in STD/HIV prevention program: Bangladesh experience.

Int Conf AIDS 2002 Jul 7-12; 14:(abstract no. LbPeF9051)

Chowdhury AA, Jana S
CARE-Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh

ISSUES: Many STD patients including the members of the high risk and bridging population visit the local pharmacist for the management of their STDs. And most of these pharmacists do not have any training on Syndromic case management.

DESCRIPTION: CARE-Bangladesh is implementing HIV prevention program for the high risk groupsex workers, IVDusers and bridging population,trruckers,sailors for some time.STD case management by qualified doctor is one of the important component of this program. Our peer outreach workers are motivating their peers to use our clinical facilities. Baseline survey showed that all of these groups have quite high number of STD and also practice very risky sexual behavior. Most interestingly most of them60% do nothing for the disease, they are suffering. Majority of the rest went tolocal pharmacist for treatment. So we fell,only motivating the peers by outreach to use clinical facilities will not help us, so we start thinking differently. After that we conducted a survey among the local pharmacist in our working area and found that most of the pharmacist are just medicine seller and have no formal training, They also know nothing on syndrome management but prescribing medicine for STDs causing problem in drug compliance resulting into reinfection. So a short training prog.on syndromic management for local pharmacist in our working area is introduced.

LESSON LEARNED: After introduction of this,we have found they are now prescribing the right drug fo right duration to patients who are suffering fromSTDs. They are also talking about drug compliance because if one of their patients is completely cured then he/she is telling about this pharmacist to some of his friend. They are also referring the complicated patients to our clinic. All these measures have ultimately improved the quality of our program. RECOMMENDATION: CARE-B will expand the program & will work as resource org. to help others to organize this type of training intthe country.

Keywords: AEGIS, Case Management, HIV Infections, Pharmacists, HIV Seropositivity, Ambulatory Care Facilities, Sex Behavior, Data Collection, Education, Pharmacy, Health Resources, Bangladesh, Human, education, therapy

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