Turkmen Medical Professionals Utilize IT in the Fight against Tuberculosis

Throughout the world, tuberculosis still poses a serious threat to populations. Local medical professionals in Turkmenistan recently increased their ability to combat the disease by picking up IT skills that will keep them up to date on strategies for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of TB.

The Ashgabat Tuberculosis Prevention Center (TPC) are now utilizing internet search skills acquired through a training course made possible through the USAID-funded Internet Access and Training Program (IATP), administered by IREX, to locate online medical resources on tuberculosis prevention. Eighteen doctors from various TPC departments participated in the course in January at the IATP center in Ashgabat. The event was conducted also as part of the USAID-funded Project Hope's Social Mobilization Program, which works to raise the level of medical professionals' skills in Turkmenistan. Prior to IATP trainings none of the medical employees knew how to use computers and apply technology into their daily work.

The most valuable knowledge that IATP provided trainees was learning how to use Internet effectively. Participants of the training opened email accounts to establish and maintain professional correspondence with their colleagues abroad. During the course, doctors explored online resources such as international medical portals and tuberculosis prevention centers in Russia and Central Asia. Now they regularly access such websites that of the World Health Organization to find up-to-date information for their research and learn about different diagnoses.

They also created a catalogue of medical resources dedicated to tuberculosis prevention techniques and new medical facilities and products in Russian and English languages. Participants of the training shared the information that they learned through IATP with their co-workers and introduced them to the catalogue which will facilitate their own professional development.
Project Hope Program Coordinator Mayagozel Nedirova remarked, "IATP became a supplemental tool for realizing our project mission on providing free access to information to promote the social mobilization of local people." Nedirova continued, "Now doctors are finding treatment information online and using it for their patients at the clinic."  Project HOPE representatives and beneficiaries are planning to create a documentary film about their activities in Turkmenistan upon completing a series of upcoming computer trainings. The documentary film will be then presented at the IATP centers.