The guidelines contain evidence-based recommendations for cervical cancer screening and were created in the context of the WHO global strategy to accelerate the elimination of cervical cancer, as well as the need to provide screening and prevention services to all women around the globe.
Dr. Linda Eckert–University of Washington (UW) Professor of Obstetrics & Gynecology, Adjunct Professor of Global Health, and technical advisor to I-TECH’s cervical cancer programs in Namibia, Malawi, and Botswana–served as one of the lead consultants coordinating the WHO guidelines.
“It has been a true privilege to join with WHO colleagues to collect and synthesize data and work with cost effectiveness modelers and our 60-member multinational Guideline Development Group, who shared their immense experience and knowledge to create these evidence-based guidelines,” said Dr. Eckert. “It is so hopeful for women around the globe, and I feel inspired thinking about how many women can be spared the suffering of cervical cancer through implementation of these guidelines.”
Dr. Laura Muzingwani, the lead physician for I-TECH’s Cervical Cancer Prevention Program in Namibia, was also an active member of the Guideline Development Group. Her experience and expertise in cervical cancer screening and treatment in Namibia enabled her to offer valuable guidance in the crafting of these recommendations.
In addition to the UW, contributing partners in the project included McMaster University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the Clinton Health Access Initiative, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), and Unitaid, among others.
The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), in collaboration with the Malawian Ministry of Health (MOH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, began implementing recent HIV infection surveillance in April 2019. The project aims to establish a surveillance system among persons newly diagnosed with HIV infection by integrating point-of-care testing for recent infection into routine HIV testing services (HTS). A rapid test for recent infection is given to consenting clients 13-years-and-older who screen HIV positive within routine HTS across participating health facilities. Between April 2019-2020, I-TECH and MOH activated 485 testing points at 155 facilities in Malawi. All 155 facilities implemented recent HIV infection surveillance and reported data. The project has reached 11 of 28 districts to date.
These data allow the detection and characterization of recent HIV infection among newly diagnosed individuals and identify geographic areas associated with recent HIV-1 infection to inform geographic prioritization of HIV prevention and treatment strategies. The project has demonstrated high uptake and allowed characterization of recent infections according to socio-demographic and geographic factors. PEPFAR implementers in Malawi will collaborate with MOH to further investigate the reasons for high recent infection prevalence in identified clusters. Based on the findings of these responses, Malawi may focus on interventions such as youth-focused programs that aim to limit HIV acquisition and transmission among young people.
The global health community recognizes March 24 as World Tuberculosis (TB) Day to raise awareness of this deadly, yet preventable and curable, disease. The 2021 theme, “The Clock Is Ticking,” underlines the importance of acting now to end the global TB epidemic. According to World Health Organization, the probability of developing active TB disease is 18 times higher in people living with HIV (PLHIV), and in 2019 TB killed 1.4 million people worldwide, which includes 208,000 people who were HIV-positive.
Photo Credit: I-TECH
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, TB is one of the leading causes of death worldwide for PLHIV. To help treat and combat the spread of TB, particularly among PLHIV, the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) supports TB prevention, care, treatment, monitoring, and policy activities across the I-TECH global network. Current I-TECH work includes TB interventions in Mozambique, Namibia, and Malawi.
I-TECH supports the National TB Program in Mozambique by using the Warm Line—a telephone consultation line that supports clinicians—to deliver results for suspected drug-resistant TB cases to clinicians located at health facilities throughout the country. This collaboration with the Ministry of Health’s National TB Reference Lab allows for more timely identification and better management of drug-resistant TB cases. During 2019, 9,103 (83%) of results were delivered via the Warm Line. I-TECH’s team also engaged providers and clinicians in 383 interactions via the Warm Line to support mentoring and to monitoring complicated TB cases.
In addition to supporting clinicians with TB care and diagnosis, I-TECH supports TB prevention, diagnosis, and care among clients attending HIV clinics throughout seven regions and across 150 public health facilities in Namibia. The I-TECH team screens for active TB; monitors drug interactions for TB/HIV co-infection; provides TB screening, prevention, and management of TB/HIV co-infection for HIV-positive clients; tests for HIV at TB clinics for clients with unknown HIV status; and assesses eligibility, previous initiation, and completion of TB Preventive Therapy (TPT) to ensure no clients are missed. As of January 2021, approximately 90% of HIV-positive patients on antiretroviral therapy at supported facilities initiated their TPT course and 80% have completed their TPT course. I-TECH also works closely with healthcare workers and facilities to improve recording keeping of TPT course initiation and completion as well as the use of this data to focus day-to-day clinical efforts.
Since 2015, I-TECH has been providing technical assistance support to the Malawi National TB Program to improve the quality of TB services at all health facilities throughout Malawi. I-TECH continues to train program monitors to interpret and act on data collected using the TB Standard of Care Monitoring Tool. The tool, designed by I-TECH, collects data for case detection, treatment outcome monitoring, TB/HIV status ascertainment, and TB infection control and contact investigation. Using the collected data, I-TECH identifies performance gaps and create action plans for health facilities to improve the quality of TB services. Even with a loss of momentum due to the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, by September 2020, 85% of presumptive TB cases—those who were suspected of TB and referred for testing—knew their HIV status.
I-TECH’S WORK IN MOZAMBIQUE IS SUPPORTED BY THE HEALTH RESOURCES AND SERVICES ADMINISTRATION (HRSA) OF THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES (HHS) UNDER U91HA06801, THE INTERNATIONAL AIDS EDUCATION AND TRAINING CENTER (IAETC). THE CONTENT OF THIS POST IS THE AUTHOR’S AND SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS THE OFFICIAL POSITION OR POLICY OF, NOR SHOULD ANY ENDORSEMENTS BE INFERRED BY HRSA, HHS OR THE U.S. GOVERNMENT.
COVID-19
I-TECH provides technical assistance on the prevention and control of COVID-19 that ranges from training health care workers and facilities in infection prevention and control best practices to supporting the development of national policies and standard operating procedures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I-TECH continues to work with ministries of health and other key stakeholders to ensure that laboratories, health facilities, and clinics are implementing and being trained in procedures to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19.
In addition to directly supporting COVID-19 prevention and control efforts, I-TECH has been working with governments and the ministries of health to ensure the continuity of HIV care and treatment by supporting clinicians via telephone consultations, developing messaging campaigns to connect people living with HIV (PLHIV) with pharmacies and clinics stocked with antiretroviral therapy (ART) medications, and helping PLHIV form community ART refill groups.
The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), in collaboration with the Namibian Ministry of Health and Social Services (MOHSS) and with funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), has launched a campaign to raise awareness of the importance of screening for and treatment of cervical pre-cancer in women aged 20–49.
This awareness campaign is the most recent expansion of the Namibian Cervical Cancer Screening and Treatment Program, which was rolled out in 2018 following the adoption of national cervical cancer guidelines by the MOHSS in March 2018.
MoHSS Health extension worker and data clerk capturing data for the National Cervical Cancer Program.
The rollout of this awareness campaign and expansion of the program has been especially important during the COVID-19 pandemic because patients may be less likely to visit their health care provider for preventive care, including cervical cancer screening and treatment.
“This campaign will bring a much-needed awareness to not only screening but also the different treatment options that are available,” says Dr. Laura Muzingwani, I-TECH’s Cervical Cancer Prevention Lead Physician in Namibia. “We want to ensure that all women, particularly HIV-positive women, are empowered to take action and get screened for cervical cancer. We also want to inform women that they can still be safely screened despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”
Screening and treatment are available to anyone who needs it, but the I-TECH program has focused its efforts on HIV-positive women. Women living with HIV are five to six times more likely to develop cervical cancer than HIV-negative women, even if they are on antiretroviral therapy (ART). Currently, the I-TECH program supports screening and treatment at 31 MOHSS health facilities and 11 outreach sites in seven regions across Namibia. As of August 2020, the program had performed more than 14,000 screenings and 1,700 treatment procedures for HIV-positive women.
“The cervical cancer program has achieved a lot of success within a short period,” says Dr. Laimi Ashipala, MOHSS Chief Medical Officer HIV/AIDS and STI Control subdivision. “With these additional outreach and awareness efforts, we hope to reach 100,000 HIV-positive women in the next two years.”
As part of the campaign’s outreach efforts to reach HIV-positive women, I-TECH is contacting women receiving ART to offer cervical cancer screenings during their routine medication pick-up visits. The team is also reaching out to community-based ART refill groups as a way to bring screening services to HIV-positive women at community meeting points.
Expanding and Adapting the Health Care Provider Training Program
VIA provider providing VIA services.
In addition to awareness and outreach, the program has expanded cervical cancer screening and treatment training for health care providers (e.g., doctors, registered and enrolled nurses).
“Key aspects of the program have been the training and uptake of our health care providers,” explains Dr. Ashipala. “We are scaling up our efforts to train and certify health care providers in using VIA and ablative treatments throughout the country. In addition to VIA and ablative treatments, we have also expanded training and certification to include LLETZ and cervical biopsies, which allows us to treat patients who may not be eligible for ablative treatments.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to adjustments in the way trainings are provided for the safety of facilitators and participants and to aid in pandemic control efforts. In response, I-TECH supported a virtual MOHSS VIA (visual inspection with acetic acid or VIA) screening training for nine, newly recruited cervical cancer screening health care providers. Since the program began in 2018, I-TECH and MOHSS have trained 249 health care providers.
Creating a Suite of Informational Materials
This Cervical Cancer Prevention brochure is one of several pieces in a suite of materials created by I-TECH.
I-TECH, in collaboration with stakeholders, has developed a suite of materials—flyers, brochures, and posters—for patients and providers to complement the outreach and training efforts.
The materials highlight the importance of screening, encourage women to make an appointment, explain the method of screening, and provide information about the treatment options that are offered through the program.
The materials will be used by health care providers during health education sessions with patients, distributed to women when they visit their health care facility or ART clinic, and following screening and/or treatment appointments. Some of the materials will also be displayed at health facilities and referral hospitals to advertise screening availability.
“We applaud the Ministry for highlighting the need for cervical cancer prevention, screening, and treatment despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and taking action by collaborating in the development of resources, adopting guidelines for providers, and supporting training for health care providers,” says Dr. Muzingwani.
The International AIDS Society (IAS) virtually hosted their 23rd International AIDS conference (AIDS 2020: Virtual) on 6-10 July 2020. The AIDS 2020: Virtual theme was resilience, to celebrate and acknowledge the strength of the HIV community and the significant advances in treatment, while also addressing gaps in treatment, prevention, and care.
Representatives from the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) virtually presented the following posters with accompanying audio recordings:
Malango Msukwa, BSc, MPHc, I-TECH Malawi Monitoring, Evaluation, and Data Manager, received a scholarship from IAS to attend AIDS 2020: Virtual and presented a late-breaker e-poster on a study that evaluated the uptake of a new HIV surveillance system and described which populations have continued HIV transmission titled, “Characterizing recent infections among persons with new HIV-1 diagnoses in Malawi.”
In addition to the I-TECH representatives presenting their posters, representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Health Alliance International (HAI) also presented data from I-TECH programs in Malawi and Mozambique.
A new five-year research project will study two-way texting as a means of communication between healthcare providers and male circumcision (MC) patients in South Africa. It will build on previous research conducted in Zimbabwe.
Caryl Feldacker is the Principal Investigator (PI) on this RO1, which will support research through 2025. The multi-stage implementation science study is based out of the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH), and will be implemented with Dr. Geoffrey Setswe, PI for South Africa partner, Aurum Institute, and with technology partner, Medic Mobile.
“Previous research shows that healthcare workers waste a lot of time and money reviewing MC clients without complications,” Feldacker said. “So, in partnership with Medic Mobile, we developed a two-way texting (2wT) system to identify and refer men with potential medical issues to in-person care while allowing the vast majority to opt-out of routine post-operative visits.”
Programs providing voluntary medical male circumcision (MC) in sub-Saharan Africa are struggling to meet the annual goal of 5 million MCs. However, chronic human and financial resource shortages threaten achievement of MC targets, reducing impact of this effective HIV prevention intervention. Although MC is safe with an adverse event (AE) rate of less than 2% , global MC guidelines require one or more in-person, post-operative visits within 14 days of MC for timely AE identification. With low AE rates, overstretched clinic staff likely waste invaluable resources conducting unnecessary routine reviews for MC clients without complications while men healing well needlessly pay for transport, miss work, and wait for reviews, discouraging MC uptake.
Dr. Ann Downer speaks at the I-TECH annual meeting in 2010.
On June 30, 2020, Dr. Ann Downer will retire from her post as the Executive Director of the International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) at the University of Washington (UW).
Downer has had a 31-year career at UW; she founded I-TECH 18 years ago with a talented team of global health professionals at UW, along with her friend and colleague Dr. Michael Reyes, at the University of California, San Francisco. In that time, she has been the center’s trusted leader; a principal investigator for several awards; and a pioneering educator, mentor, and friend.
As is fitting for a hero’s journey, hers started on a boat.
After dropping out of University of California, Berkeley, as an undergraduate in the early ’70s, one semester shy of completing her degree, she worked as one of the only female commercial fisher-“men” in the Pacific Northwest for the lion’s share of her 20s.
Downer fishes in Neah Bay on the Makah Reservation in Washington, across the border from British Columbia.
“Mistake or not, [leaving UC Berkeley] set me on a path that school wasn’t setting for me at the time,” says Downer. “My experience fishing made me resilient, taught me how to work hard, and, above all, made me think about my future since I knew I couldn’t fish forever.”
But in order to finish school, she needed to set a new direction. On the advice of a female sailing instructor, she volunteered at Planned Parenthood Whatcom County in Bellingham, where she quickly secured a paying job.
“This one action — asking someone for advice — set my entire career in motion,” says Downer. “She prompted me to seek a new direction.
“And it was during my time as an education coordinator for Planned Parenthood that I gained the core skills that would serve me for the rest of my career,” she continues. “Teaching and instructional design, health education and curriculum development, comfort with discussing issues related to sexual health, and being in front of groups of people. Those years also solidified one of my core values — that people should have choice in regard to their own bodies.”
Downer finished her undergraduate degree while working at Planned Parenthood and then applied to the UW in Seattle. She went on to get a master’s degree in Health Education and Health Promotion at UW from a department (Kinesiology) that was later eliminated as duplicative with School of Public Health programs.
She again worked full-time during graduate school, exercising her entrepreneurial muscles helping to start a nonprofit program on prevention of child sexual abuse (the successful Committee for Children program has since expanded its work with parents and teachers to provide training on development of empathy and conflict resolution skills).
Downer and her team designed many of the first AIDS prevention campaigns in the state.
Following graduation and a year doing consulting work for clients such as the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Downer became the education coordinator in the mid-’80s for the first HIV/AIDS program at Public Health-Seattle and King County, where she and her team designed many of the first AIDS prevention campaigns in the state.
“I had learned by then that I really enjoyed working at the edge of emerging social issues,” she says.
Downer joined the UW faculty in the Department of Health Services in 1989. As a practice-focused educator working among researchers — and as a master’s-trained faculty member working closely with physicians, nurses, and PhDs — she had ample opportunity to call on the work ethic and tenacity she’d forged in the commercial fishing industry years earlier.
She eventually took the advice of her department chair, Dr. Bill Dowling, to continue her education. So, once again, she returned to school and worked full time while earning an advanced degree in educational leadership at Seattle University.
“The program wasn’t what I expected,” says Downer. “I thought it would concentrate on topics related to educational administration, like finance and law, but, while those topics were included in the curriculum, it was really a degree program focused on values-based leadership.
“I didn’t know it then,” she says, “but this was exactly what I needed in order to stay at UW and flourish.”
Values-based leadership became the foundation of two centers that Downer led at UW: the Center for Health Education and Research (CHER) and, later, I-TECH.
“I discovered that I could bring people together who shared certain values — respect for others, belief in the power of education, maintaining an attitude of hope, the desire to integrate practice and research,” she says. “These were the core values that guided us at CHER and carried over to I-TECH.”
CHER’s programs were initially focused on domestic public health challenges but began to expand in the direction of global health, so Downer approached Dr. Stephen Gloyd, who led the International Health Program (IHP).
“With Steve’s help and encouragement, we aligned more closely with IHP and began to grow our global portfolio of projects” says Downer. “As new projects were funded, the metamorphosis into what would become I-TECH was rapid, but our values and principles always remained the same.”
Downer and mentor Dr. King Holmes, Chair Emeritus of the UW Department of Global Health, in 2017.
I-TECH was formally founded in 2002 and moved from Health Services into the newly created Department of Global Health (DGH) in 2007, at the invitation of Dr. King Holmes, the founding chair of DGH. Holmes was closely involved in I-TECH from its inception and has been instrumental in its success; he remains a mentor to Downer and I-TECH to this day.
Since 2002, I-TECH’s cumulative funding at UW totals nearly $1 billion. I-TECH currently has an international staff of 2,000, with 13 offices in low- and middle-income countries, several of which have now transitioned to become independent, local organizations.
Downer was recognized by UW in 2015 as the recipient of the “Distinguished Contributions to Lifelong Learning” award, in part because of her growing interest in promoting e-learning at UW. Downer’s pioneering 12-week online course, Leadership and Management in Health, had graduated 25,242 participants as of March 2020, with an 87% completion rate. More recently, partnering again with the DGH e-Learning Program (eDGH) on a second 12-week professional development course, Project Management in Health, graduated 6,197 participants in its first two offerings, with a completion rate of 88%.
“My work with eDGH has brought me back to my roots in education,” says Downer, “designing educational products that include content and voices from diverse cultural traditions and perspectives. This is critical learning for those working in public health systems throughout the world — and especially important for improving the leadership and management skills of people working in those systems.”
I-TECH staff past and present, as well as assorted friends and family, gather virtually to toast Ann’s career and retirement.
Though officially retiring on June 30, Downer, as an emeritus professor in DGH, will continue to work for a small amount of time from July through December 2020 in order to finish one global health project under way in Cambodia and two online courses before turning them over to others.
At the same time, Downer does plan to be a retired person and reports that she’ll be busy in her garden, as always, and returning to her early roots as she again takes up sailing. Her adventure began — and now continues, it would appear — on the vast waters of our beautiful Pacific Northwest.
Downer is truly excited to see I-TECH move into the next phase of its organizational life under the leadership of Dr. Pamela Collins, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health, Professor of Global Health, and Director of the Global Mental Health Program.
“We all welcome you, Pamela!” says Downer. “I believe with all my heart that you are the right person at the right time for I-TECH. You inherit one of the most competent, resilient, and ethical groups of people you will ever work with — and a vision, mission and set of operating principles that I know are consistent with your own.
“I-TECH has been one of the loves of my life,” she continues, “and I wish you the same sense of fulfillment and pride I have had working with this incredible team of people — past and present — at this incredible university of ours.”
Dr. Pamela Collins, I-TECH’s new Executive Director
The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) is pleased and proud to welcome Dr. Pamela Collins as our new Executive Director, starting July 1, 2020.
A psychiatrist and mixed-methods researcher, Collins joined the University of Washington (UW) in 2018 as Director of the Global Mental Health Program, within the Department of Global Health (DGH) and the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. She also serves as Director of Faculty Development at DGH and as Principal Investigator of EQUIP Nairobi, a pilot implementation of Trauma-Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) in Nairobi, Kenya.
Prior to arriving at the UW, Collins spent eight years at the National Institute of Mental Health, where she was Director of the Office for Research on Disparities & Global Mental Health and the Office of Rural Mental Health Research.
Collins was awarded an MD from Cornell University and an MPH from Columbia University, where she was a faculty member for 13 years. There, her research focused on the intersections of HIV prevention, care, and treatment and the mental health needs of women of color in the U.S., as well as diverse groups in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. At Columbia, Collins was also the founding Director of the Global Health Track and Co-Director of the Initiative for Maximizing Student Diversity at the Mailman School of Public Health.
“I am humbled and thrilled by the opportunity to join and lead the I-TECH community,” says Collins, “as it applies its depth of experience and readiness for opportunity to a rapidly changing global health landscape.”
Zim-TTECH staff supports Kowoyo Clinic in Goromonzi District, Mashonaland East Province, Zimbabwe. Photo credit: Macpherson Photographers.
The International Training and Education Center for Health (I-TECH) has transitioned another office to an autonomous entity. The Zimbabwe Technical Assistance, Training and Education Center for Health (Zim-TTECH) was officially launched on April 1, 2020, as a locally registered health trust. Zim-TTECH is the administrative and managing partner for the two existing I-TECH CDC/PEPFAR funded grants in Zimbabwe, each grant having a consortium of local partners:
ZimPAAC (Zimbabwe Partnership to Accelerate AIDS Control) is a partnership between Zim-TTECH, Africaid, Pangaea Zimbabwe AIDS Trust, and I-TECH. ZimPAAC collaborates with the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MoHCC) on context-appropriate health interventions to improve access to, as well as strengthen the quality of HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support services. ZimPAAC provides services at 373 facilities in 17 districts.
ZAZIC is a partnership between Zim-TTECH, I-TECH, and two local implementing partners—Zimbabwe Association of Church Related Hospitals (ZACH) and Zimbabwe Community Health Intervention Research Project (ZiCHIRe). ZAZIC supports voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) services at 38 static facilities in 13 districts.
“The transition from an I-TECH country office to a fully fledged independent local organization is exciting,” states Dr. Batsirai Makunike-Chikwinya, Zim-TTECH’s Executive Director. “Zim-TTECH is committed to continue to provide high-quality support to the MoHCC and to the health sector as a whole. Special thanks go to management and staff of both I-TECH/UW [University of Washington] and UZCHS-CTRC [University of Zimbabwe College of Health Sciences Clinical Trials Research Centre], who played pivotal roles during this transition.”
I-TECH has worked in Zimbabwe since 2003, collaborating with the MoHCC and other partners to improve clinical services and strengthen health systems. “It is a pleasure to support the launch of Zim-TTECH, which is the right next step toward country ownership and, importantly, recognizes the high level of skill and professionalism of the prior I-TECH country office and now Zim-TTECH team,” remarks Dr. Scott Barnhart.
