Is This Health Worker Ready to Prevent HIV? There ' s a Game for That

By Katherine Seaton, Editorial OfficerJanuary 23, 2020Around1.4 million people are living with HIV in Tanzania. While there’s been a 49% decrease in the number of AIDS-related deaths since 2010, the country is still a long way from epidemic control. Training health workers to mitigate the spread of the disease is crucial.TheWorld Health Organization estimates that we need over 7 million additional skilled health workers to meet just the basic health care needs of the world’s 7.6 billion residents. Countries such as Tanzania are focusing not only on increasing the number of their health workers, but also on maximizing the effectiveness of those they do have.That’s why IntraHealth International created Tohara Bangua Bongo, a game for health workers in Tanzania who take part in beginner and refresher courses on providing voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC), which reduces men’s risk of acquiring HIV infection through heterosexual intercourse byaround 60%. The course helps health workers update their technical skills and improve patient satisfaction. Trainers use the game to quickly gauge what and how much information their trainees are retaining.“We createdTohara Bangua Bongo as a way of getting information about health workers’ level of understanding and comfort in some of these aspects while they’re still in the classroom, before they move on to working with actual people,” says Anne Fitzgerald Vinluan, a technical a...
Source: IntraHealth International - Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: Tags: HIV & AIDS Digital Health Source Type: news