Regional Strategies for AIDS Care

WHO-WPRO, Strategies for HIV/AIDS care in resource-limited countries of the Asia Pacific region

Dr Hor Bun Leng, Deputy Director of the National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and STI in Cambodia presented his country's approach to providing care in a extremely resource limited session. He described the "triangle" of home care, hospital and hospice. He described the "imbalance" between the strong home care program and the other "points". He also described the frustration of dealing with donors that refuse to respond to the demands of PLWHAs, the community and governments for ARVs, or even food for PLWHAs. Controversially, he said stigma and discrimination were not a priority - there was support for PLWHAs at all levels of society and other issues were more pressing. Dr Wu from China said that only about four percent of estimated number of PLWHAs are diagnosed, and only a fraction of these are in contact with any care.

One fact presented was that 70 percent of Thailand's AIDS budget is spent on care with only 7.6 percent allocated for prevention. Dr Joshi, Head of the National AIDS Control Organisation, very strongly stated that the priority of his program was prevention. One of the reasons he cited was that, unlike TB and syphilis, treatment of HIV "does not stop transmission".

Closing remarks from the WPRO representative included the WHO aim of increasing ARV coverage in the region by six to seven times over the next five years.