We can do better so that all people with HIV live healthy normal lifespans

Love oneself. Stay healthy. And have a health-seeking behaviour to ensure all of us get to age with rights and remain disease-free.

AIDS is at a crossroads: Would governments expand the proven key population-led services?

“We are at a critical juncture in our response to end AIDS. As of now, we have 6.7 million people living with HIV in our region. Despite the progress we have made in our AIDS response, there are still 300,000 new HIV infections and 150,000 AIDS related deaths each year,” said Harry Prabowo of Asia Pacific Network of people living with HIV (APN Plus) and Seven Alliance. Even one AIDS death is a death too many because we have the science-based tools to avert it.

[podcast] Decentralise people-centred services to find all, treat all and prevent all TB among people living with HIV

This podcast features Dr Rajesh Kumar Sood, District Programme Officer, National Health Mission, Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India. He shares what #PutPeopleFirst means to him in the lead up to the 25th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2024).

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, Podtail, BluBrry, Himalaya, ListenNotes, American Podcasts, CastBox FM, Ivy FM, Player FM, iVoox, and other podcast streaming platforms.

[video] Latest TB preventive therapy (1 month duration) is to be launched for people with HIV in Kangra

[video] Decentralise people-centred services to #findAllTB, treat all and prevent all TB

[podcast] Why has India not fixed recurring stockouts of HIV medicines in past 17 years since its free rollout began?

This podcast features Hari Shankar Singh who along with many other people living with HIV are on an indefinite sit-in demonstration outside office of National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) - Indian government's apex programme on HIV, to demand end of stockouts of lifesaving antiretroviral medicines across the nation, and minimum one month supply of medicines to people across India. This podcast was recorded on 20th August 2022 which marks 31 days of this indefinite stir. The struggle is ongoing and continues.

Listen to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, TuneIn, aCast, Podtail, BluBrry, Himalaya, ListenNotes, American Podcasts, CastBox FM, Ivy FM, and other podcast streaming platforms.

Moving HIV prevention and treatment tools from the lab to all those in need

Shobha Shukla - CNS

Recent scientific advancements have brought to the fore the promise of more effective and long term solutions to help people living with HIV to thrive and not just survive. Today we have a buffet of HIV prevention options (such as, oral daily PrEP, once-a-month vaginal dapivirine ring for women, 2-monthly long-acting injectable) along with a bouquet of improved treatment modalities (monthly and 2-monthly long-acting injectables) adorning the HIV/AIDS arena, thanks to the untiring efforts of the scientific community. Many others are in the pipeline in different stages of research and development.

Shobha Shukla's exclusive trilogy (3 article-series) from #IAS2021

A bouquet of novel compounds: New treatment options for HIV

Shobha Shukla - CNS

It was 40 years ago when the first case of HIV infection was diagnosed. Since then, 77.5 million people have been infected with the virus and 34 million people have died from AIDS-related causes. While a lot has been achieved in terms of providing lifesaving antiretroviral treatment to save lives, we still lost 690,000 people living with HIV to AIDS-related illnesses in 2020. Even today more than 10 million (27%) of the 37.6 million people living with HIV are not on treatment. Moreover, "we are getting signals of HIV drug resistance, which means we need to strengthen our surveillance efforts and continue to invest in long-acting prevention and treatment tools, in the absence of an HIV vaccine, and also remember that solutions we find may not be one size that fits all", said Dr Adeeba Kamarulzaman, President of the International AIDS Society (IAS), during the closing session of the recently concluded 11th International IAS Conference on HIV Science (IAS 2021).

People with HIV in urban Zimbabwe prefer individual care at a health facility

[published in NAM aidsmap]

Personal preferences should drive the scale up of differentiated antiretroviral therapy models

Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant

The crown that won the HIV battle

Swapna Majumdar, CNS Special Correspondent, India

Barbara Kemigisa
Photo credit: Swapna Majumdar

She is not traumatised by it, nor does she want to hide it. On the contrary, Barbara Kemigisa wants the whole world to know that she has the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection. In fact, the 33-year-old flaunts it by wearing a victory crown made with empty bottles of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs used to treat the infection and leftover pills. “I’m not afraid of the stigma of living with HIV. I want people to know my status so that they can see that people living with HIV don’t need to wither away and die. By wearing this crown, I can attract attention without saying a word,” says Kemigisa.

Prevent #TB to #endTB

Family support is crucial for diabetes care

Dr Amitava Acharrya, CNS Correspondent, India

Photo credit: CNS (Durban, South Africa: 2017)

Human health is an equilibrium condition of physical, mental and social health. Traditionally, human beings are a group of socially dependent mammals where family and society have a major role in the development of human behavior, morality, ethics and the way of life. This becomes all the more pronounced in countries like India, where a strong traditional and cultural bond runs in its milieu.

Research and development: The gateway for a TB free world

Ronel Sewpaul, CNS Correspondent, South Africa

The fight against TB necessitates innovative new strategies to keep pace with the changing face of the epidemic and to capitalise on technological advancements. The first ever United Nations High-Level Meeting on TB in September 2018 called on world leaders to commit to and be accountable for ending TB.

Ending tuberculosis now is timelier than ever

Ekwi Ajide, CNS Correspondent, Nigeria

Nearly 4500 people die daily from tuberculosis (TB), the world’s deadliest infectious killer, and about 10 million people fall ill with this preventable and curable disease every year, which can infect any part of the body, but, more often than not, attacks the lungs. The symptoms of pulmonary TB include a cough that lasts for more than 2 to 3 weeks, weight loss, fever, night sweats, loss of appetite and coughing up blood, among others.

Unfortunately, UN agencies have never put TB as their top priority, said Dr. Mario Raviglione

Manjari Peiris, Sri Lanka 

Dr Mario Raviglione

[First published in Asian Tribune, Sri Lanka/Thailand on March 30, 2019]
“There is no single country in the world which has ever eliminated tuberculosis (TB)- the number one infectious disease killer in the world. Asia and Africa respectively account for 60% and 25% of the global TB cases. Every year 10 million patients with TB are reported in the world and 1.6 million die of it, which amounts to nearly 4000 deaths per day. So we need to move fast to achieve elimination targets set by the World Health Assembly as part of the End TB Strategy”, stated Dr. Mario Raviglione, Director, Global Health Centre, University of Milan, and former Director, Global TB Program of the WHO, while speaking at a webinar organized by Citizen News Service (CNS) in the lead up to World TB Day 2019.

India Health Fund provides platform for domestic financing and innovation to combat TB and malaria

Shobha Shukla and Bobby Ramakant
(First published in Aidspan on March 19, 2019)

The collaborative initiative, seeded by Tata Trusts, comes to the co-financing table

With an acute need to increase health budgets, innovative financing, especially mobilized within nations, is increasingly in the spotlight. At the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria’s 39th Board Meeting in May last year, the Fund stated that given the changing financing landscape and existing financial and programmatic gaps, the Fund should leverage opportunities to use innovative finance to increase funding flows for itself and other actors, as well as to increase the efficiency of its investments and national programs.

We are together in the fight against cancer

Beryl Osindo, CNS Correspondent, Kenya
Non communicable diseases (NCDs), including cancer, continue to claim lives in a way that is frightening, to say the least. We are dealing with a tragedy whose signs and symptoms are well known, precautions are shared, and possible causes are subjects of continued research. World Cancer Day 2019 came and passed. But it is important to carry on the discourse around this still dreaded disease.

Poverty is a big damper for timely treatment of cancer

Catherine Mwauyakufa, CNS Correspondent, Zimbabwe

Wadzanayi Michele Mayiseni - A cancer survivor   

Cancer treatment and care remains a challenge in Zimbabwe with most cases getting diagnosed in the late stages. Currently, over 5000 new cancer cases are diagnosed in the country annually. This is just the tip of the iceberg as many cases are not captured and registered. The majority seek medical help when in an advanced stage of the disease. The large number of people living with HIV (1.3 million) results in an even higher number of people who develop cancer.

WHO prioritizes AMR: A key issue tackled through multi-sectoral partnership

Manjari Peiris, Sri Lanka
[First published in Asian Tribune]

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a multi-sectoral problem affecting human and animal health, agriculture, as well as the global environment and trade. Clean water, sustainable food production and poverty alleviation are but a few of the challenges it poses. It is learnt that AMR threatens the effective prevention and treatment of an ever-increasing range of infections caused by bacteria, parasites, viruses and fungi.