Background

The Bureau of AIDS, TB and STIs (BATS) of the Department of Disease Control, Ministry of Public Health has accumulated experiences, related technical knowledge and expertise on tuberculosis (TB), sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and in particular HIV/AIDS from years of implementing the high quality preventive and curative services/interventions as well as effective program management including policy formulation, strategic planning, securing funding support, logistical planning and procurement, actual program implementation, and monitoring and evaluation.

 

The well documented achievements and lessons learned from such programs included approaches of 100% condom use for HIV prevention among vulnerable groups of population, effective TB treatment of DOTS strategy and TB laboratory as well as active STIs services supported by high quality laboratory diagnosis, all of which have been widely known within and outside this region of the world.

 

Thus, the Bureau of AIDS, TB and STIs has had to regularly fulfill the requests by health agencies from many countries to organize training courses and observation and study tours to strengthen capacity of their health personnel. In doing so, BATS has also had its potential technical staff undergo development and capacity strengthening essential for it to become center of excellence on HIV/AIDS, TB and STIs to be readily capable of providing technical assistance, transfer of knowledge and capacity strengthening international participants on a continuing, regular and efficient manner.

 

This also addresses the national policy of international cooperation in which technical assistance and capacity building/human resource development are integral parts and which the Royal Thai Government strongly commits to.

 

With these technical knowledge and experience and expertise as well as the earnest desire to sharing them with other developing countries to fight against and alleviate problems of the three major diseases under its responsibility, the Bureau of AIDS, TB and STIs has, in June 2004, initiated its establishment of the International Training Center (ITC) on AIDS, TB and STIs with initial funding support from the Thailand MOPH – US CDC Collaboration (TUC) for the first three - year period.

 

Since its official inception in 2004, the ITC has mainly relied on the expertise and time contributed by its experts and technical staff from the three Clusters of AIDS, TB and STIs under the Bureau of AIDS, TB and STIs (BATS).  The ITC office was set up and gradually equipped with both the standard office equipment and personnel.

 

It was not until January 2005 that the first international training course under the title of Inter-country Training of Trainers of TB/HIV funded by WHO was conducted.  By mid 2005, three additional international training courses were conducted based on the existing curricula earlier developed and trained by each of the three clusters of BATS’ specialties.

 

More existing curricula for international audiences on the three subject matters have been under preparation for future training courses.  In addition, new ITC training curricula are being designed based on the more recent experience and expertise gained from the advanced development and implementation of the AIDS, TB and STIs programs in conjunction with the perceived current needs, situation and trends of the countries to participate in the training courses.

 

At present the ITC office is located at the premise of TB Cluster in Bangkorlaem District, a southeastern suburb of Bangkok, a half hour drive from the main MOPH compound in Nonthaburi Province.