Director’s Message

Director’s Message

The SAARC Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS Centre (STAC) is a regional Centre of SAARC. The fifth Summit of the Heads of the States or Government of the Member Countries of SAARC held at Male from 22-23 November 1990 was decided to setup SAARC Tuberculosis Centre (STC) in Nepal. Accordingly, the Centre established in 1992 and started its functioning since 1994. Since 2005 it was renamed as STAC to deal with both TB and HIV/AIDS in the SAARC Region with new revised mandate.

The Centre has been working with the vision to support and guide SAARC member states to make the region free of TB and HIV/AIDS by coordinating the National Tuberculosis Control Programmes (NTPs) and National HIV/AIDS Control Programmes (NACPs) of the Member States. The Centre has developed and launched the revised SAARC Regional Strategies on; HIV/AIDS (2018-2023), Advocacy, Communication & Social Mobilization- ACSM  (2018-2023), Elimination Tuberculosis (2018-2023) and  Migration Health on TB and HIV/AIDS (2018-2023). Now, it is the time to review and update these Strategies, according to new developments in the field of TB and HIV/AIDS for achieving the national, regional as well as global targets.

The Centre is focusing on area such as – policy & strategies, human resource development, researches & surveys, regional level awareness & advocacy, networking with collaborating partners and operational of SAARC Supra-national Reference Laboratory for TB and HIV/AIDS, sharing of knowledge, technical documents, best practices and information through its impactful activities. The Centre’s activities are recommended by the Governing Boards and approved by the Programming Committees of SAARC.

With voluntary contributions of the Governments of Bangladesh, India and Nepal, the SAARC Supra-national Reference Laboratory for TB and HIV/AIDS is going to become operational very soon. The aim of this laboratory is to promote scientific research, to build up skilled workforce by useful timely trainings, quality assurance of technologies of SAARC Member States laboratories and to build up an organism bank for future endeavor.

I would like to sincerely thank and appreciate the support and cooperation provided by the Managers of National TB Programmes and National HIV/AIDS programmes , Governing Board Members as well as Ministry of Health, Ministry of Foreign/External Affairs, SAARC Member States, SAARC Secretariat and collaborating partners and STAC staff team.  I strongly believe that such cooperation and support will continue for future activities and initiatives of the Centre.

Finally, I will be grateful for your valuable suggestions, feedback and guidance that might be helpful to achieve our desired goals.

 

Dr. Manisha Rawal

Director

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