NEW NAME FOR BOTSWANA-HARVARD AIDS CARE TRAINING PROGRAM
KITSO: "Knowledge, Innovation, and Training Shall Overcome AIDS"

For immediate release

Boston, MA–The Botswana-Harvard AIDS Care Training Program has changed its name to the KITSO AIDS Training Program to reflect the cultural richness of Botswana ("kitso" translates to knowledge in Botswana’s Setswana language) and to further illustrate the program’s goal of providing intensive AIDS care training to Botswana’s health care community.

KITSO, which is a collaborative educational initiative of HAI, the Botswana-Harvard Partnership for HIV Research and Education, and the Botswana Ministry of Health, will launch a special course on antiretroviral therapy in July 2001. As Botswana prepares to provide ARVs to its citizens infected with HIV this year, this course will help prepare the country’s physicians to prescribe and monitor these therapies. The course will include an on-site workshop for a group of health care providers and will be available on a CD-ROM by the end of 2001.

KITSO has been developed with a modular framework, consisting of eight core modules and four specialty tracks. An array of electronic media—a groupware system, and CD-ROM, video, and electronic mail—will bring program content to sites convenient to course participants. In addition to using distance education, participants will attend special workshops and seminars in Botswana. These sessions will address specific topics on HIV and AIDS and will feature lectures by experts in the field and presentations by participants.

Participants who successfully complete the program will receive a certificate from the Harvard School of Public Health’s Center for Continuing Professional Education.

Since the first case of AIDS in Botswana was reported in 1986, HIV has spread rapidly throughout the country, especially in recent years. In June 2000, UNAIDS estimated that there were more than 290,000 people in Botswana living with HIV or AIDS and well over 66,000 AIDS orphans.