"Our communities face several challenges in accessing HIV testing, treatment and care," said Harry.
There is hope. There is a plethora of demonstrated evidence from several countries and communities over the years that key population-led health services have successfully and effectively been able to reach out to those-in-need and serve them with human dignity in a rights-based manner. But these pilots are yet to be scaled up to have the desired public health impact.
Professor Praphan Phanuphak is credited to have diagnosed the first person with HIV in Thailand in 1985. He is a co-founder of HIV-NAT (the HIV Netherlands, Australia, Thailand Research Collaboration) and now serves at the Institute of HIV Research and Innovation (IHRI) as Senior Research and Policy Advocacy Advisor.
Thailand is among the few nations in Asia Pacific which is on track on a range of 2025 HIV-related targets. Reflecting, Prof Praphan highlighted few good policies in Thailand that helped advance care for people with HIV and preventing the spread of infection. Thai policy to prevent vertical transmission of HIV led the land of smiles to become first country in Asia Pacific region to eliminate vertical transmission of HIV and syphilis in 2016. Thai policy to provide free HIV testing for everyone once a year is another good practice. Free antiretroviral therapy, free pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP - a medicine for HIV negative people to help reduce the risk of HIV acquisition), same day test and treat, are some other good practice examples.
"These are good policies based on scientific evidence - sometimes Thai policies were based on WHO recommendations and many a times these were based on local evidence. For example, policies for same-day test and initiation of antiretroviral therapy and key population-led health services were made in recognition of the local evidence," said Prof Praphan Phanuphak.
"But good policy decisions may not necessarily mean political commitment," he added, as political sustainability is equally important to ensure policies, programmes and actions are sustained - and grow - in the desired public health direction over time.
Community leadership in AIDS response and delivering services
Dr Praphan shared that they had to demonstrate that key population-led health services work effectively. At the same time, they had to work towards removing the barriers - such as from medical council, medical technology council, among others, so that people may not object to key population-led health services when they get approved in wake of the evidence.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
