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Worldwide, nearly one million curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs) occur each day, half of them in Asia. Where they are common, STIs are among the major causes of serious preventable conditions such as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, cancer and congenital infections. Millions more incurable STIs add to the heavy burden of morbidity and mortality for women, men and children. Globally, unsafe sex ranks third among the morbidity risk factors, accounting for over 5% of attributable disease burden, and fifth for attributable mortality. For these reasons, interventions to prevent and control STIs are among the most cost-effective public health measures, which moreover contribute to achieving several Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
Resource | Publications,
In response to concerns over low coverage of HIV testing and counselling in the Asia Pacific region, a "Joint WHO/UNICEF/UNAIDS technical consultation on scaling up HIV testing and counselling in the Asia Pacific" was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia from 4 to 6 June 2007. The aim of the meeting was to discuss how to scale up HIV testing and counselling services, discuss core public health approaches, ethical principles and human rights values to guide the expansion of HIV testing and counselling, and identify and agree on key actions for follow-up at the regional and country level for policy and programme implementation.
Participants recognized and agreed that there is an urgent need to scale up access to HIV counselling and testing in countries of the region as a means of enhancing access to comprehensive HIV prevention, care and treatment. Existing models of voluntary counselling and testing (client-initiated HIV testing and counselling) need to be strengthened, scaled up and complemented by approaches that can best fit the local epidemiological and social context and build on the potential of health services to offer HIV counselling and testing (provider-initiated HIV testing and counselling). A set of key conclusions and recommendations was agreed on by the consultation participants.
Resource | Publications,
The aim of this review was to gather information relating to HIV prevention, care and treatment in prisons in the WHO South-East Asia Region. Countries selected for inclusion in the review were India, Indonesia, Nepal and Thailand.
South-East Asia is second only to sub-Saharan Africa in terms of estimated numbers of people living with HIV. South-East Asia has also been home to some stunning successes in scaling up HIV prevention, care and treatment interventions. However, the role of HIV transmission in prisons as a key factor for the spread of HIV in the community has largely been ignored. Prisoners are often seen as less deserving of health care or other assistance, particularly when resources are scarce. Yet it must be remembered that prisoners are only temporarily removed from the general community. At some stage, most prisoners will be released and resume living in the community. When prisoners are released, so too are their infections and illnesses.
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The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria was formed in 2002 in response to the unacceptably high losses from the pandemics. It is a unique global public/private partnership dedicated to the massive scale-up of financing to prevent and treat these diseases in lower-income countries. This partnership between governments, civil society, the private sector and affected communities represents a new approach to international health financing. The Global Fund works in close collaboration with other organizations to supplement and support existing efforts dealing with the three diseases.
The Global Fund’s grant portfolio is organized into eight regions, which are managed by eight corresponding clusters in the Global Fund Secretariat. This overview provides a brief insight into the burden of HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in each of these countries and offers a brief description of the Global Fund grants active there. The overview features a number of success stories from these states and shares the latest performance indicators for grants attributed to countries in the South and West Asia region.
Resource | Publications,
This campaign could not have come at a more opportune time in East Asia and the Pacific. While HIV
prevalence in the region remains relatively low, the virus poses a serious threat. East Asia’s massive population coupled with rapidly changing social and economic dynamics could escalate epidemics, and in turn, jeopardize the tremendous development gains that have greatly benefited millions of children in the region. The threat is of a different nature in the Pacific, where HIV could devastate sparse populations and undermine whole cultures and societies.
This 2007 report is updated from an earlier version released in October 2006. Our aim is to provide the latest information of collaborative actions between UNICEF and governments, civil society, the United Nations system and international partners in East Asia and the Pacific region. It is an account of progress, from the purview of UNICEF around the Four Ps of primary prevention, preventing mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT), paediatric AIDS treatment and the protection and care of children affected by AIDS.
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The International Center for Research on Women (ICRW) conducted research in South Asia on emerging efforts in women’s inheritance and property rights as an AIDS response. This special edition is for audiences of the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific, which features a Regional Court of Women and symposium on the subject.
In addition to the research outlined in Women’s Property Rights as an AIDS Response, and with input from UNDP, this edition includes a supplementary discussion on the current state of HIV and AIDS in Asia Pacific and the potential pathways of secure property rights for women to mitigate HIV and AIDS.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) is committed to support Member countries in developing comprehensive and sustainable national AIDS programmes. WHO plays a key role in HIV/AIDS prevention and control in the health sector through providing strategic direction, normative guidance and technical support for national AIDS programmes – through long-term staff in high-burden countries and in-country technical missions.
The National AIDS Programme Managers’ Meeting is an effective forum for sharing experiences between countries, which subsequently leads to strengthening of national AIDS programmes. This annual meeting provides an opportunity for AIDS managers and WHO to review the progress made in AIDS control over the past year, identify and discuss key constraints, formulate possible strategies for replicating successes, and draft plans for the implementation of those strategies at the national and regional level.
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HIV/AIDS and human trafficking threaten human security and human development. Millions of women and girls have been trafficked across borders and within countries in recent years, making human trafficking a global industry that generates an estimated five to seven billion U.S. dollars each year.
In an effort to reduce the dual vulnerabilities of trafficking and HIV among women and girls through greater understanding of the issues and the current state of play in the region, the UNDP RCC convened a Rapid Assessment Studies (RAS) in six South Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The RAS highlights the magnitude, dimensions, causes, consequences and key interventions on HIV/AIDS and human trafficking. The emphasis was on exploring the linkage of the two issues and mainstreaming at different levels of interventions – policy, legislation and programming. A compilation of findings from the RAS is presented in this publication, which highlights the critical links between the two issues and the paucity of data and concerted efforts to address the two together. A number of areas of convergence and joint initiatives have also been identified and recommended.
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Although there have been many notable successes in both the prevention and treatment of HIV, stigma and discrimination have been intractable problems associated with the AIDS epidemic throughout the world. Stigma certainly has well-established individual consequences: it has been shown to delay HIV testing, restrict utilization of preventative programs, and hinder the adoption of preventative behaviours like condom use and HIV status disclosure (Brooks et al., 2005). Stigma may also have consequences for individual economic well-being as well as broader socioeconomic development (beyond the impact of HIV disease alone). In Asia, where the epidemic arrived relatively late, HIV is spreading with rapid speed. In 2005, the number of AIDS cases in Asia topped 8 million; this is compared to approximately 3 million people just 10 years prior (UNAIDS, 2006). Determinants and consequences of stigma and discrimination on socioeconomic development in Asia have yet to be empirically assessed.
In this context, this review is aimed at generating informed discussion among key stakeholders including academia, policy makers, governments, donors and people living with HIV on the phenomenon of stigma and discrimination, with a particular focus on its human development context and impact. The paper also seeks to set a research agenda to foster compelling and disaggregated enquiries into stigma and discrimination.
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The global commitment to Universal Access to comprehensive HIV prevention, treatment, care and support by 2010 will remain hollow without extraordinary steps to strengthen the health system. Fostering linkages within the health sector — for a start — brings all service delivery points to bear to better detect and treat HIV and AIDS among population of men, women and children who may be at high risk but are unaware of their status.
Buttressing the linkage of a set of services, each with a constituency of users who may be exposed to HIV, is a systematic scale up of services with a vast scope for expansion. Such linkages utilize the strength of each channel — through sexually transmitted infections, reproductive health, adolescent, maternal, newborn and child health services — to bolster the health system’s overall response to one of 21st century’s most harrowing epidemics.