Enhanced Cooperation on HIV with French Side and Neighboring Islands.

PHILIPSBURG/MARIGOT:--- HIV & AIDS Project Officer Margje Troost and lead physician on HIV & AIDS/ St. Maarten AIDS Foundation President Dr. Gerard van Osch met with delegations from French St. Martin, Guadeloupe, and Anguilla at the French side Hospital L.C. Fleming last week Monday, July 15th. Participants included Doctors, healthcare specialists, civil servants, and INTERREG Representatives. The meeting was held to evaluate the project entitled the "Development of an inter-Caribbean HIV observatory" and come up with ideas for new projects. These new projects will be based on the needs of the various Caribbean islands in order to strengthen the collaborated response to the HIV epidemic in the Caribbean region.
The project is an initiative extended by the European Regional Development Fund via the INTERREG IV Programme with the overall objective to enhance cooperation and build regional evidence on the viriological strains of HIV in order to equip and prepare countries with the knowledge, skills and systems to respond to patient's needs. Discussions on future cooperation were very fruitful and a proposal is being developed.
It is important to recognize the collaboration with the French Government, our French colleagues and physicians such as Dr. Clavel and Dr. Stegmann as well as Lepers Laboratory in the Interreg program. Through this program the Dutch side has been able to do free genotyping tests as well as CD4 and Viral load tests for both the insured and uninsured persons. The project also gives valuable (anonymous) information about resistance to certain medications which is beginning to circulate on the island.
As St. Maarten and St. Martin continue to strengthen ties with each other and neighbouring islands, the work that has been achieved thus far should be acknowledged. Currently, St. Maarten and St. Martin are able to accommodate and provide treatment for HIV patients, have seen a tremendous increase in the amount of people getting tested, have teamed up with AIDES to do joint testing days, we have managed to increase the number of patients that are receiving state of the art information on their virological strains in order to tailor treatment, and we are working with NADIS which is a highly protected, confidential, joint surveillance system used to monitor the HIV epidemic on both sides of the island.
NADIS has allowed St. Maarten and St. Martin to produce more accurate HIV data which is extracted anonymously without the names of the patients and then used for surveillance and planning purposes. Storing information on one unique database has allowed closer relations to form by sharing HIV data which can only be accessed by very few physicians. The sharing of knowledge allows doctors from both sides to provide an excellent continuum of care as it is known that patients often seek healthcare on both sides. The recent visit by Dr. Ward Schrooten, the PAHO expert on ICT and surveillance systems, helped strengthen the collaborative efforts between St. Maarten and St. Martin by aiding Dr. Van Osch with the extraction of data from the extensive anonymous HIV database which has been compiled by Dr. van Osch over the years. This extracted data will be used by the Dutch and French side to develop collaborative reports which will highlight the HIV epidemic on St. Maarten and St. Martin as a whole rather than two separate countries.