Aids In South Asia

South Asia's HIV epidemic is severe in magnitude and scope, with at least 60% of all people with HIV in Asia living in India. Because the HIV epidemic is highly heterogeneous, designing informed, prioritized, and effective responses necessitates an understanding of the epidemic's diversity between and within countries. This review was undertaken to provide a basis for rigorous, evidence-based HIV policy and programming in South Asia.

This book offers an original perspective on AIDS as a development issue in South Asia, a region with a heterogeneous epidemic and estimated national HIV prevalence rates of up to 0.5 percent. The analysis challenges the common perception of HIV and AIDS which has been shaped to a large extent by analysis of HIV and AIDS in other regions with much higher prevalence rates. Three risks to development are associated with HIV and AIDS in South Asia: the risk of escalation of concentrated epidemics, the economic welfare costs, and the fiscal costs of scaling up treatment.

Although overall HIV prevalence in South Asia is low, the widespread stigma attached to HIV and AIDS impedes efforts to reach people most in need of prevention, care, and treatment services. To address this challenge, the 2008 South Asia Region Development Marketplace partnership, led by the World Bank, launched a competitive grants program to support innovative community approaches. 'Tackling HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination in South Asia' summarizes the monitoring, evaluation, and case study data and documents successful community innovations. Twenty-six community groups in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka received funds. The initiatives involved a broad spectrum, including vulnerable groups as well as people living with HIV, the media, local government authorities, health workers, and religious leaders. The interventions used traditional cultural and media approaches to discuss taboo subjects. The reach of the initiatives was amplifi ed by involving opinion leaders. The strategies engaged marginalized groups to design and lead the interventions and to facilitate contact between groups experiencing stigma and the general public to reduce fears and misconceptions about transmission. Projects that combined economic and stigma reduction interventions helped the marginalized populations to overcome the internalized stigma and become empowered to advocate for their rights. 'Tackling HIV-Related Stigma and Discrimination in South Asia' identifies effective strategies to raise awareness and reports on shifts albeit slow of attitudes, norms, and behaviors. Through its recommendations for successful interventions to reduce barriers to effective HIV prevention, care, and treatment programs, the book provides a strong foundation on which to build stigma reduction efforts in the region and world.

Health, Culture and Religion in South Asia brings together top international scholars from a range of social science disciplines to critically explore the interplay of local cultural and religious practices in the delivery and experiences of health in South Asia. This groundbreaking text provides much needed insight into the relationships between health, culture, community, livelihood, and the nation-state, and in particular, the recent struggles of disadvantaged groups to gain access to health care in South Asia. The book brings together anthropologists, sociologists, economists, health researchers and development specialists to provide the reader with an interdisciplinary approach to the study of South Asian health and a comprehensive understanding of cutting edge research in this area. Addressing key issues affecting a range of geographical areas including India, Nepal and Pakistan, this text will be essential reading for students and researchers interested in Asian Studies and for those interested in gaining a better understanding of health in developing countries. This book was published as a special issue of South Asian History and Culture.

Effective treatment for HIV and AIDS came in 1996. For sufferers in the developed world, this marked a true watershed moment: the end of the death sentence. But for many in the developing world, including in Southeast Asia, these new treatments remained far out of reach. In his early thirties, following the loss of his partner to an AIDS-related illness, Chris Beyrer wrote the first edition of War in the Blood. Three decades later, having served as president of the International AIDS Society, he believes we have arrived at an extraordinary milestone. For the first time, a patient has been demonstrably cured of HIV, new vaccine trials in Thailand have shown great promise, and the PrEP programme genuinely works. So why are over half of the estimated 38.8 million people living with HIV still not on treatment? War in the Blood is a labour of love, both a celebratory account of Southeast Asia and the story of our failure to protect those most vulnerable the world over – gay men, adolescent girls, sex workers, drug users, and transgender women. Beyrer offers an impassioned plea for our communities and governments – and our own hearts and minds – to stop denying the realities of sex, sexuality, and gender, and to take affirmative action.