AIDS work

In 2006, I joined UNAIDS armed with research and evaluation skills earned from my previous engagement in health and development work. I had managed national level surveys (with my colleagues in the religious community), spearheaded impact studies (determining impact of reproductive health and family planning interventions in several Philippine settings), led evaluation research (testing new solutions in tuberculosis prevention and control), designed health database systems optimizing online and information technology, among others.

At that time, an HIV case is reported only every other day or just around 300 for the entire year. Majority of those who got it was via sexual transmission, with two-thirds from unprotected male-to-female route or vice versa.

The main clamor at that time was to amend the then 8-year old AIDS law whose provisions needed to be revised to address the needs of the country - the annual AIDS appropriation needed to be increased because it was mainly for the operations funds of the Philippine National AIDS Council Secretariat (PNAC) to coordinate the national AIDS program; the structure and representation of PNAC needed to be expanded, optimized and/or equipped with full secretariat staff complement; the prevention policies needed to consider projected trends in transmission i.e. among overseas workers;  data collection, management and program evaluation were to be systematized, among others.

I was tasked to support the national stakeholders to enhance data collection on HIV, improve investigation and analysis, optimize existing estimation and projection tools to inform strategic and long term planning, and lastly to ensure the national HIV strategy is monitored and evaluated every 2 years for the country’s regular report to its 2001 United Nations Commitment to “halt and reverse” the HIV epidemic by 2015 (MDG Goal #6)

For me, HIV then was data. Each HIV case was a statistic.

A decade later, HIV to me has a flesh, a voice, a mind, has feelings.

I see HIV in the eyes of my 4 kids.

With more than 20 HIV cases reported daily (almost 1 every hour) by end of 2015 - a two-thousand fold increase from a decade ago - my 4 kids will certainly witness the impact of this epidemic on their formative years.

HIV is real. HIV is here.

NEXT - Did we forsesee this?

READ THE SECTIONS ONLY

HIV Around me  |  AIDS Work  |  Did we forsesee this?  |  Where did we fail?  |  The legendary AIDS Law  |  No Cases. Where did it go?  |  Confused  |  Wildfire  |  We will bounce back  |  Papang, thank you, I know my HIV status 

READ THE COMPLETE POST HERE