Public Health Program
Infectious diseases continue to be a leading cause of illness and death in the Greator Mekong Subregion (GMS-Thailand, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam, Burma and Southern China) countries, threatening sustainable development. The recent emergence of infectious diseases such as highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 and multi-drug resistant malaria require innovative measures to strengthen public health systems while providing the general public with the necessary tools to proactively protect their health and the health of their communities. Kenan Institute Asia’s (K.I.Asia) public health activities emphasizes health diplomacy for cross-border collaboration on surveillance of, and response to, significant and emerging human and zoonotic infectious diseases, preparedness for pandemic influenza, control and elimination of multidrug resistant malaria, life skills-based behavior change communication and healthy tourism initiatives.
Our Services
K.I.Asia’s team of public health professionals develops, tests, and adapts innovative processes and models for strengthening public health and community systems through project design, grant and subgrant management, training and workshops, life-skills based behavior change/risk communication, process documentation, technical assistance consulting, monitoring and evaluation. Through multi-sectoral partnering, regional and cross-border collaboration, the public health team is able to implement and replicate projects in countries throughout the GMS.
Our Professional Team
K.I.Asia’s public health team consists of six public health professionals with more than 90 years of public health experience in communicable disease control, policy, epidemiology, life skills education, curative services, behavior change/risk communication, training, research and participatory approaches for community mobilization. The team has worked in all six GMS countries and several other countries in South and Southeast Asia.
Projects Examples
Border Action Against Malaria Program
Starting in October 2000, with over US $3 million in funding from USAID, K.I.Asia developed and worked with a broad national coalition to slow the emergence and spread of multi-drug resistant malaria in Thailand’s border areas. The project is strengthening national capacity by establishing a network for sentinel surveillance of drug resistance and a systematic process for evidence-based policy changes in treatment regimens to respond to emerging resistance to anti-malarials. K.I.Asia’s public health team is supporting development of new models of cooperation and partnership to enable community-based action, and supported pilot implementation of program reorientation from malaria control to a strategy for elimination. The project is strengthening the national capacity for surveillance and response covering an at risk population of 17.6 million population in 26 provinces. The project will end in June 2009.
School-based Avian Influenza Prevention and Pandemic Influenza PreparednessPlanning Project
Supported by UNICEF and USAID with approximately US $240,000 in funding, K.I.Asia began working in May 2006 with the ministries of education and public health in Thailand and Vietnam to build capacity for life skills-based health education for the prevention of avian and human influenza and to develop a process and manual for school-level influenza pandemic emergency preparedness and response planning. Under this three year project, K.I.Asia produced and distributed curriculum and instructional packages on avian and pandemic influenza and guidelines for school pandemic preparedness planning to 32,288 schools. K.I.Asia provided training for 175 education districts, 76 provincial health offices and 12 regional disease control offices in Thailand. The curriculum was also adapted and tested in 100 schools in Vietnam and guidelines for pandemic preparedness planning are currently under development for Vietnam.
Partnerships for Prevention and Control of Avian Influenza and Preparedness forPandemic Influenza
With US $1.5 million in support from USAID, K.I.Asia is working with the ministries of health from Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam to formulate and implement joint action programs for cross-border collaboration on communicable disease surveillance and response with a focus on avian and pandemic influenza.The K.I.Asia public health team collaborated with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center to organize a regional experience sharing workshop on avian and pandemic influenza exercises inASEAN+3 countries, and has developed a specialized training curriculum for simulation exercises that was used to train national trainers in 11 ASEAN+3 countries with funding from the Government of Australia (AusAID). Starting in June 2006, the training exercises have resulted in improved design and management of simulation exercises leading to better preparedness for pandemic influenza. Staff from the ministries of health in Cambodia, China, Lao PDR, Thailand, and Vietnam are being trained on exercise management and will complete 27 exercises at 11 cross-border sites by June 2009.
Our Strategic Partners
The success of K.I.Asia’s public health program is in no small part due to the collaborative efforts of K.I.Asia’s team members in developing an extensive network of partner and client organizations, including GMS ministries of health and provincial health offices, USAID, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, WHO, UNICEF, UNSIC, IOM, IRC, the Asian DisasterPreparedness Center, the University of North Carolina School of Public Health, the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness, U.S. Pharmacopeia, and Management Sciences for Health.
