The WFH Twins of the Year have been announced! The 2020 Hemophilia Organization Twinning (HOT) Program Twins of the Year are NHF (USA) – HFI (India), and the 2020 Hemophilia Treatment Centre Twinning (HTC) Program Twins of the Year are Aluva (India) – Newcastle (U.K.). Both twins overcame major hurdles created by the COVID-19 pandemic to further the WFH vision of Treatment for All.
The World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH) Twinning Program creates short-term collaborative partnerships between Hemophilia treatment centres, patient organizations and youth groups, helping improve treatment and care for people living with an inherited bleeding disorder around the world.
The NHF (USA) – HFI (India) twinning was notable as it was a pilot project for a youth program, designed to evaluate the effectiveness of twinning with participants under the age of 30. “I have admiration for the young men who travelled hours by bus and days by train…. to learn skills that they were able to take home,” said Carson Ouelette from the NHF. Members of HFI were looking forward to using what they had learned to make their organization more self-sustaining.
The Aluva (India) – Newcastle (U.K.) HTC Twins also had a productive experience. The Aluva HTC was able to significantly improve the effectiveness of their laboratory, physiotherapy and home treatment services. They were also able to publish robust data on clinical outcomes and quality of life, increasing the visibility of their twinning efforts.
The Twins of the Year were announced at a webinar where other twins shared what they did to move their endeavours forward despite the pandemic. The Tehran-Milan twins trained an Iranian lab technician in Italy, translated educational materials in Farsi, and delivered several other projects. The Belgium-Ivory Coast twins organized a self-infusion workshop with a prosthetic arm, among other activities, and the Honduras-Mexico twins developed a patient app, which includes educational resources and medical tips about hemophilia (read more on that story here).
On behalf of the WFH, congratulations to the 2020 Twins of the year!
The Twinning program is supported by exclusive funding from Pfizer.