HIV treatment

According to a press release issued by the Office of the Governor of Puerto Rico "There are currently six "new" medications that have been proven effective in treating these types of patients (HIV/AIDS patients) but are not currently covered under the Government Health Insurance Plan (GHIP, commonly referred to as Reforma), because the committees that evaluate and select new medications have not met since the year 2000." These review committees are part of the Puerto Rico Health Insurance Administration (PR-HIA, known by its Spanish acronym ASES) that manages the "Reforma" public health plan.

ASES is a public corporation that was created in 1993 to manage Puerto Rico's Public Health Insurance system. The Secretary of Health of Puerto Rico, Dr. Rosa Perez Perdomo is a member of the Board of Directors of ASES which has oversight for the evaluation committee. http://www.gobierno.pr/ASES/BaseLegal/
 read more »

Dr. Konstantin Lezhentsev, a longtime leader in promoting HIV care and treatment for people who use drugs, is director of treatment at the All Ukrainian Network of People Living with HIV, where he oversees programs integrating HIV treatment with drug and TB services.

With more than 1.5% adult HIV prevalence, Ukraine has been hardest hit by the Eastearn European HIV epidemic, largely driven by injection drug use. The partly good news is that Ukrainian civil society and government have made great progress on building a strong network of harm reduction services and providing HIV care and treatment to thousands of people with Global Fund and state funding.

At the same time, the state of HIV services in the prison sy stem is appalling, decent quality drug treatment is more the exception than the rule, and TB is killing far too many. On August 2, I talked with Konstantin about what's working in Ukraine, what's not, and what the Network is prioritizing in coming months.

   read more »

The Pre-conference symposium organized by OSI, Strategies for Change: Breaking barriers to HIV Prevention, treatment and Care for Women provided much food for thought and insightful panelists who spoke with true candor on important issues such as empowerment strategies, how lawmaking can be used to their benefit, how to make, track and spend money in these grassroots organizations and how to advance health Care for Women.

The panels were well rounded and I particularly enjoyed the diversity of the panelists: they had different takes on certain issues and this made the conversation flow and expand. It felt more like a conversation in someone's living room than a conference where you sit and hear people drone: it was quite lively and engaging.

One of the greatest things has been that there is quite enough time for each panelist to speak out about their experience: each session is 1.5 hours long and I think that this is enough time for panelists to relax and know that they'll have more than enough time to speak out, so conversation flows equally with participation from all the different women. The full program can be seen here.  read more »