This picture was drawn as part of a project to explore the provision of HIV prevention services to African Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) migrants to the UK. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) estimates that 86,500 people are living with HIV in the UK in 2010. The disease disproportionately affects MSM who represents nearly half of those newly infected with a consistently higher proportion of black MSM. African migrants and MSM are an underserved group in terms of HIV prevention services.
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This picture illustrates some aspects of a holistic approach to appreciate the situation of some migrants who enter the sex industry. It starts with people in search of better life opportunities than that available in their country. Immigration to more developed countries with a more appealing life style (advertised through globalisation and new communication technologies) represents an attractive option.
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Being infected with HIV is not just a question of having unsafe sex with someone who is HIV+. Such reductionist approach ignores the complex set of factors, circumstances and events that lead to unsafe sex to take place. This concept map tries to survey these factors starting from the remote to the more intimate. As always, this is a work in progress and comments and suggestions are welcome.
Despite the interesting results of an HIV vaccine trial in Thailand (RV144), HIV prevention is still limited to a small number of options many of which are not bullet-proof. Biomedical interventions based on vaccines and microbicides are still a long shot away. Conversely, treatment is working well in bringing HIV-infected people back to a normal life and potentially reducing the risk of HIV transmission by reducing their viral load. The use of antiretroviral drugs as a means to prevent HIV infection is controversial and a lot of background work will be required before embarking on massive “Test and Treat” campaigns.
Microbicides are compounds that can be applied inside the vagina or rectum to protect against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) including HIV. They can be formulated as gels, creams, films, or suppositories. Microbicides may or may not have spermicidal activity (contraceptive effect). At present, an effective microbicide is not available (WHO definition)
A conceptual framework for understanding the diseases of poverty. Despite tremendous technological and scientific progresses in the understanding of diseases and their management, millions of people in the developing world still die of preventable infections and food scarcity whilst millions of other in the developped world die of diseases of opulence and excess.
Online Facilitators (2006-2007) for Nabuur which mission is to give communities in developing countries access to their global Neighbours via the Internet and through these Neighbours to the huge reservoir of resources (knowledge, solutions, energy, and creativity) that is available elsewhere.
This is the narrative I wrote when nominated for the 2006 UN Online Volunteer of the Year Award. I did not get the award but another volunteer from Nabuur was one of the 10 volunteers to receive the award.
In 2005 I decided to take a break from the hectic London life and to move to Thailand for a year. I arrived in Bangkok in February 2006 and after a couple of months holidaying around, I decided to devote some of my free time to voluntary work. Read the rest of this entry »
Two strong messages have emerged from the 16th International Aids Conference in Toronto, Canada. The first is that with drug treatment now being rolled out in developing countries, prevention should return to centre stage in future policies and strategies. The second is that women’s lives and status need to be improved and that women need to be given power to prevent HIV infection.
Both messages were embodied in Bill Gates’s keynote speech:
“We need to put the power to prevent HIV in the hands of women. This is true whether the woman is a faithful married mother of small children or a sex worker trying to scrape out a living in a slum. No matter where she lives or what she does, a woman should never need her partner’s permission to save her own life.” Read the rest of this entry »
Popular belief has it that obesity only affects wealthier societies where food is plentiful: the curse of the developed world epitomized by hulking Americans that struggle to order their king-size Big Mac, French Fries and Coke without breaking sweat.
Obesity is no longer exclusive to the developed world
The reality is a very different. Obesity and its associated diseases – diabetes, hypertension and kidney diseases – respect neither wealth nor class and strike instead into the heart of every society where there is easy access to convenience food, low physical activity and ubiquitous advertisements for sugar-fat-salt-rich food. Read the rest of this entry »
This picture was drawn as part of a project to explore the provision of HIV prevention services to African Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) migrants to the UK. The Health Protection Agency (HPA) estimates that 86,500 people are living with HIV in the UK in 2010. The disease disproportionately affects MSM who represents nearly half of those newly infected with a consistently higher proportion of black MSM. African migrants and MSM are an underserved group in terms of HIV prevention services.
