During the opening session of the 2006 SAWC in San Antonio, Texas, the AAWC launched the World Wound Care Alliance, now called the AAWC-Global Alliance. This is a volunteer program designed to provide underserved countries of the world with wound care education concerning management of a number of frequently encountered wounds, including edema and lymphedema. Teams now have traveled to Cambodia, India, and Peru. The reports from the Cambodian and Indian teams are in this issue of WOUNDS. Other volunteer teams are scheduled to return to Peru and India during the fall of 2008.

   As this program was getting started, something extraordinary happened. In September 2007, John Macdonald, MD, then President of the AAWC, was asked by Handicap International (HI) (http:// www.handicap-international.org.uk ) to come to Geneva, Switzerland to explore the potential for integration of wound management (including edema/lymphedema management) across the wide scope of treatment of neglected tropical diseases in resource-poor settings with representatives of the World Health Organization (WHO). The African Region of WHO is leading the drive for integration because duplicating services would be a waste of precious resources. Handicap International chairs the Lymphatic Filariasis (LF) Partnership, a group of Non-Governmental Development Organizations (NGDOs) that have a long history of working with the national health systems in developing countries. This partnership has led the way in providing nonsurgical morbidity management programs for LF and other neglected tropical diseases. The HI partnership through their contacts, and in cooperation with the WHO, will be able to assist the AAWC-Global Alliance in making wound management services operational within the existing healthcare structures of specific countries and settings. They will also be able to assist the AAWC-Global Alliance in identifying appropriate sites for the volunteer programs. Health Volunteers Overseas (HVO) has also collaborated with AAWC to facilitate volunteers for the AAWC-Global Alliance programs. Health Volunteers Overseas provides the logistics and the structure for processing and organizing volunteer visits. This includes on-site accommodations, professional support, and pre-visit organization. Volunteers must pay for travel expenses and personal necessities, such as insurance and immunization.

   The alliance of HVO and AAWC Global Alliance will allow the provision of on-the-ground, long-term clinical interventions and the clinical expertise to prepare the training materials and to develop the best methods for integrating wound care across disease states—it’s a potentially significant collaboration!

   Handicap International first heard about AAWC from Mary Jo Geyer, PT, PhD, (Chatham University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) during a Lymphatic Filiariasis meeting in Ghana in early 2007. Their interest derives from patients in developing countries with chronic wounds/lymphedema who fit the criteria of the severely handicapped. They recognize this as a “hidden epidemic.” As a result of the Ghana meeting, HI asked the AAWC to join them in forming The Working Group on Integration of Wound Management (WG-IWM) Across Diseases in Resource-Poor Settings, and to present this program to the WHO. The initial meeting took place in September 2007 in Geneva, Switzerland. The American attendees were Mary Jo Geyer, Nancy Kelley (CEO of HVO), and John Macdonald, MD, representing AAWC.

   Nancy Kelly, Dr. Geyer, and Dr. Macdonald met with physicians from WHO and HI who represented Lymphatic Filariasis, Buruli Ulcer, and Diabetes. Each group gave a presentation on their mission.