Publications

Bhutanese health system has undergone a significant change during the last few decades. The change has been accompanied by improvement in the delivery of health care services to the people resulting in improved health outcomes of Bhutanese population. There has been increasing life expectancy, decreasing prevalence of communicable diseases, among others. Further, most of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) has been realized, while some of them remain on track to be fulfilled by 2015. In addition, feedbacks from the populations also indicate lower report of sicknesses and increased satisfaction rate with health care services. On the contrary, Bhutanese health system is grappling with a plethora of challenges. The double burden of diseases – emerging and re-emerging communicable diseases and increasing prevalence of non-communicable diseases – poses threats to the health of Bhutanese population. Health system also continues to face problems such as the shortage of health workforce and escalation of health expenditures, among others. Therefore, the Status of Bhutan’s Health 2015 features the health status of Bhutanese population as of 2014. It is described under the following headings; 1) progress in health; 2) modifiable gaps in health; and 3) health system and its challenges.

2014 was another milestone year for the Department of Health (DOH) as they continued their efforts to achieve Kalusugan Pangkalahatan.  With the support of partner agencies, the Department has been vigilant in preventing the spread of emerging and re-emerging diseases by taking appropriate measures such as surveillance, quarantine procedures, effective information dissemination and risk communication, and a hospital referral network system. To allow more Filipinos to enjoy the benefits of universal health care, the department widened the reach and depth of financial risk protection by increasing membership in the National Health Insurance Program of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) through the Point of Care Enrollment Program.

The HIV epidemic in the Lao People's Democratic Republic is primarily affecting key populations in large urban areas, particularly in provinces situated along the Mekong River and Thailand. This report provides summary findings of the external reviews of the national health sector response to HIV conducted in 2014. The review recognized a significant progress made on prevention, testing and treatment of HIV infection in the country, whereas identified two major gaps on diagnosing and linking people living with HIV to care and treatment. It provides a set of recommendations and key action points to further improve HIV response in the country.

Based on research in Beijing and Shanghai, China this report focuses on the daily life, working conditions, access to services, and legal frameworks for transgender female sex workers in China. Transgender female sex workers face a broad array of discrimination in social and policy frameworks, preventing this highly marginalized group’s access to a wide spectrum of services and legal protections. They experience amplified stigma due to both their gender identity and their profession. Isolated and often humiliated when seeking public services, particularly in health care settings, has also led many to self-medicate and engage in dangerous transitioning practices, including on self-administered hormone use. The research for this report illuminates that the community of female presenting sex workers is very complex and includes men who have sex with men, transgender individuals, and transsexuals. Their vulnerabilities to HIV and their varied health needs need to be carefully assessed, strategically targeted, and addressed. As China is in the process of drafting a new HIV/AIDS action plan for 2016-2020, now is a good opportunity to develop a specific strategy on HIV prevention and care for the transgender community.

This paper is an offshoot of the 2014 AIDS Epidemic Model (AEM) Report endorsed by the Department of Health in August 2014. The AEM report utilized a set of tools (AEM workbooks) that provided techniques for estimating and measuring the impact of past and future programs on the HIV epidemic in the Philippines (1970-2050).

The HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Technology Landscape is published annually and is prepared as part of a broad and ongoing effort to understand the technology landscape for HIV/AIDS. This document os a semi-annual update on the point-of-care technologies for CD4, viral load, and early infant diagnosis (EID) testing, as well as for the diagnostic pipeline.

The first case was reported in Malaysia in 1986. Since then, HIV has become one of the country’s most serious health and development challenges. At the beginning of the epidemic, injecting drug users was key driven factor that charted the graph by leaps and bounds as the country’s responses focused more on creating awareness and early detection through screening programmes in prisons and drug rehabilitation centers country wide.  Today there are 46% fewer new HIV infection than there were 15 years ago. Today there are 54% fewer new HIV infection among children below 13 years than there were 15 years ago. We are confident we can get to zero new HIV infections among children soon. Reaching MDG6 is not the end but a beginning of a meaningful journey to end AIDS. We will not be complacent but continue to thrive towards reversing and ending the epidemic despite the milestones achieved. This report is testament to the growing body of evidence demonstrating that ending AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 is certainly doable though it appears ambitious.

The Global AIDS Response Progress Reporting 2015 was conducted through an inclusive consultative process among the HIV stakeholders. Valuable inputs and contributions were inputted from a wide range of stakeholders in Lao PDR including government agencies, civil society organizations (CSO), network of people living with HIV (PLHIV), mass organizations, international and local nongovernmental organizations (INGO), United Nations (UN), bilateral and multilateral agencies.

This research is the first large-scale quantitative research on sex workers in Fiji. It has enabled an understanding of the nature and extent of sex work in Fiji, rates of HIV and STI infection among sex workers and their knowledge and behaviour around safer sex practices. This research will complement valuable insights gained from previous qualitative research. The findings from this research will assist in the appropriate targeting and provision of education, resources, and health care services to a group previously defined by UNAIDS as a most-at-risk population. Research findings will also assist UNAIDS Pacific Office, and the Ministry of Health meet both national and international reporting requirements, including reporting on the Global AIDS Response Progress Report (GARPR) and Universal Access to HIV and STI Prevention, Treatment and Care. They also provide an evidence-base to inform SAN Fiji’s three-year work programme.

National STD/AIDS Control Programme (NSACP) is a specialized public health programme of the Ministry of Health, Sri Lanka. The Director of the NSACP in consultation with the senior management team (SMT) provides leadership and technical guidance to both preventive and curative services provided by NSACP. This report presents data collected and collated primarily from the STD clinics distributed islandwide to describe the epidemiology of STI and HIV and to document programmatic efforts to control STI and HIV infections in Sri Lanka during the year 2013.