IUATLD announces the release of its updated website in three languages: English, Spanish and French - International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients,  May, 2003  

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The International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (IUATLD) has launched its revamped website in its three official languages: English, Spanish and French.

"Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate with our members, our donors, and the general public," said Dr. Nils Billo, the Executive Director of the organization. "We run technical programs, training courses and conferences in more than 50 countries in the world and 160 countries are represented by our individual or organizational members. With our new website, they can be permanently in touch with staff at headquarters in Paris and obtain the latest information on all our activities."

The new website is indeed impressive; a great improvement over the first version that existed in English only for five years. With support from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the revamped website in its three official languages (French, Spanish and English) went online on the 20th December 2002. It introduces new features such as e-payment, the addresses of the constituent and organizational members, full technical reports from the Scientific Sections, a press center and a comprehensive guide to the organization's official scientific publication: the International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease.

This updated version, as well as being an exhaustive manual on the organization's structure, constitution, mission, Board of Directors...has also been designed to represent the world's leading players in the struggle to control and prevent tuberculosis and other lung diseases.

Want to know more about TB control in Africa? Either consult the links on the Partners chapter or go to Membership, Constituent and Organizational Members, click on Map of World, Africa and you will get the full list and addresses of all the African countries that are members of the Union.

Want to subscribe on line and become a new individual member? Click on Members, Individual Members, Subscribe and follow the instructions on the screen. The French company Atos has been chosen for their secure online payment services and is available for the purchases of guides and publications (a catalogue of more than 20 technical manuals in English, French and Spanish covering all aspects of how to run effective campaigns to control tuberculosis and other lung diseases in low-income countries), library and individual subscriptions and donations to the organization.

Special mention goes to Telmedia for its assistance in developing this large website of more than 450 pages, 1,000 files and 31,000 words, all indexed by their own search engine and monitored by VisioStats, another proprietary tool that the Lille company developed to track the number of hits and visitors to the website.

Developed in PHP, MY SQL, the biggest challenge for Telmedia has been respecting the strict technical requirements of the IUATLD. "As most of our clients and programs operate in middle to low-income countries and some of our members do not have direct access to Internet or their e-mail accounts," explains Wendy Atkinson, Communication coordinator, "we have to constantly check downloading times, screen size and server connections. For a website that contains so much textual information, this is a permanent requisite. We are looking forward to the lighter versions, scheduled for this spring, complete with an automatic system detection device so that wherever you connect, you will get the appropriate linguistic version according to the speed of your Internet provider."

The dynamic functions provided by Telmedia, the Back-Office, give the IUATLD complete liberty to update their conferences and training courses, electronic newsletter and news on the homepage, "We are in constant contact with more than 3,000 people or institutions throughout the world," concludes Nils Billo. "And when we obtain new information from our members, we have to be able to react immediately; the Back-Office is the ideal tool for that."

International Union Against

Tuberculosis and Lung Disease

68, Boulevard Saint Michel

75006 Paris France

Phone 33-1-4432-03-60

Fax 33-1-43-29-90-87

union@iuatld.org

www.iuatld.org

The IUATLD is an international scientific organization of 131 member countries and 100 voluntary scientific societies headquartered in Paris, France. The IUATLD has been a leader in the field of tuberculosis since its establishment in 1920 and works closely with the World Health Organization. Its scientists developed the DOTS strategy which was adopted by WHO in 1993 for global tuberculosis and which has been implemented by the national TB control programs of more than 130 countries. With an annual budget of 11 million Euros, the IUATLD provides direct technical assistance to 50 countries throughout the world, conducts clinical trials, organizes conferences and training courses and publishes the peer reviewed International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease. The IUATLD currently conducts 33 international training courses in Africa, Asia, Europe, and Latin America aimed at improving the skills of health workers and National Tuberculosis Program managers from developing countries. Courses such as the Inte rnational TB Course in Hanoi and the International TB Course in Managua are now in their 11th year.

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