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Stigma remains to be a major barrier to addressing the sustained rise of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in the Philippines. Gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with other men (MSMs) (G/B/MSM) living with HIV experience compounded stigma due to their sexual identity and HIV seropositive status. The family has been identified as one of the main sources of homonegativity and HIV-related discrimination. Drawing from the family life histories of 31 Filipino MSMs living with HIV, the authors demonstrate the concept of compounding stigma, which posits that the extent and nature of gender- and sexuality-based stigma experienced in early life may potentiate or mitigate the experience of HIV stigma in later life in the context of the family. Narrative analysis of the family life histories reveals a central factor that shaped the sexual development and stigma experiences of MSMs living with HIV: sexual identity visibility in the family (SIVF) – the family’s extent of knowledge and/or acceptance of their sexuality. Three core narratives emerged from the data that categorize informants based on the type of SIVF present in their family life viz. full, partial, and invisible. Results also trace the resultant life trajectories for each core narrative and reveal three forms of compounding stigma: low compounding stigma or compounding acceptance, compounding enacted stigma, and compounding internalized stigma.

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) goal to end the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 emphasises the importance of leaving no one behind. To determine progress towards the elimination goal in Ghana, an in-depth understanding of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) care from the perspective of vulnerable populations such as persons living with HIV in incarceration is necessary. This study aims to explore the experiences of incarcerated individuals living with HIV (ILHIV) and on antiretroviral therapy (ART) in selected Ghanaian prisons to help inform policy.

The study adopted a qualitative approach involving in-depth interviews with 16 purposively selected ILHIV on ART from purposively selected prisons. Interviews were conducted between October and December 2022. Thematic analysis was performed using the ATLAS.Ti software.

Three themes were generated from the analysis: waking up to a positive HIV status; living with HIV a day at a time; and being my brother’s keeper: preventing HIV transmission. All participants underwent HIV screening at the various prisons. ILHIV also had access to ART although those on remand had challenges with refills. Stigma perpetuated by incarcerated individuals against those with HIV existed, and experiences of inadequate nutrition among incarcerated individuals on ART were reported. Opportunities to improve the experiences of the ILHIV are required to improve care and reduce morbidity and mortality.

Through first-hand experiences from ILHIV in prisons, this study provides the perception of incarcerated individuals on HIV care in prisons. The insights gained from this study can contribute to the development of targeted interventions and strategies to improve HIV care and support for incarcerated individuals.

Complex inequalities have shaped the trajectory of the HIV epidemic in South Africa. These include factors related to gender disempowerment, poverty, family disruption and violence – all of which have intensified the risk of HIV infection among the majority of South Africans, contributing to one of the most severe country-level HIV epidemics globally. Neo-liberal economic policies adopted in the post-apartheid period failed to address poverty and burgeoning urban migration – both of which were key factors exacerbating vulnerability to HIV. While there was, ostensibly, a strong commitment to addressing the HIV epidemic by the post-apartheid government, HIV prevalence among pregnant women quadrupled from 7.6% in 1994 to 30.2% in 2005. Contributing to this rise, was a series of missteps by the national Department of Health in the late 1990s, which constrained HIV prevention efforts and stifled HIV treatment. The mid-2000s saw a reprioritisation of the response to the epidemic, with international guidelines supported by biomedical and social research underpinning a rights- and evidence-based response. Multisectoral HIV prevention activities were complemented by high levels of investment in implementing prevention of mother to child HIV transmission and expanding access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) for HIV through the public sector. While these efforts contributed to stabilising the epidemic, stark inequalities in vulnerability and susceptibility to HIV infection continued – in particular, among youth. In this chapter, we draw on a review of the research literature to describe concerns and explore opportunities for a response.

Prisoners are at a higher risk of HIV infection compared to the general population. The purpose of this study is to estimate the prevalence of HIV and related risk behaviours among inmates of the Central Prisons in four states of North India.

The HIV sentinel surveillance was conducted in seven Central Prisons in four states of North India from February to April 2019. Four hundred inmates were included from each prison. The interviews were conducted at the Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre located within the prison premises. The Ethics Committee of the National AIDS Control Organization, New Delhi, granted ethical approval before the start of the surveillance.

Overall, 2,721 inmates were enrolled in this study. The mean (SD) age was 38.9 (13.9) years. One-third of prison inmates had comprehensive knowledge about HIV/AIDS. The proportion of convict (54%) and undertrial (46%) inmates was almost equal. The overall prevalence of HIV infection among inmates was 0.96% (95% CI 0.65–1.40). The odds of being HIV positive were significantly higher in never married inmates, undertrials, inmates who were in the prison for more than three months to one year, inmates incarcerated for multiple times, inmates with history of injecting drug use and inmates with history of intercourse with a commercial sex worker.

The findings from the very first HIV sentinel surveillance in central prisons in North India have been presented in this paper. This has huge implications for future policy decisions.

This paper aims to determine the knowledge and attitudes of the physicians regarding human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), to emphasize that these patients exist and they will exist in the future and to raise awareness so as to prevent that their rights to treatment are revoked.

The survey was conducted via a link sent through an online system. Random physicians from 81 cities of the country were invited to the survey. The survey has 41 questions regarding knowledge and attitudes in total, including epidemiological information such as age, gender and title.

A total of 3,107 physicians has voluntarily participated in the study. In total, 2,195 (70.7%) are internal physicians and 912 (29.3%) are surgical physicians among the participant physicians. In total, 1,452 (46.7%) of the participants are specialist physicians, 608 (19.6%) of the participants are practising physician and the rest of it is physician assistants, academicians and dentists, respectively.

In this study, it has been found out that the physicians have a lack of knowledge on HIV/AIDS and they adopt a discriminatory attitude towards HIV-positive persons. HIV-positive patients who are exposed to discrimination and scared of being uncovered refrain from applying to hospitals for treatment, which puts public health into jeopardy due to the high viral load and these patients are faced with difficulties in coping with both medical and emotional load of the disease.

The fractional order HIV model has an important role in biological science. To study the HIV model in a better way, the model is presented with the help of Atangana- Baleanu operator which is in Caputo sense. Also, the characteristics of the solutions are described briefly with the help of the advance numerical techniques for the different values of fractional order derivatives. This paper aims to discuss the aforementioned objectives.

In this work, Adams-Bashforth method and Euler method are used to get the solution of the HIV model. These are the important numerical methods. The comparison results also are described with the physical meaning of the solutions of the model.

HIV model is analyzed under the view of fractional and AB derivative in Atangana-Baleanu-Caputo sense. The uniqueness of the solution is proved by using Banach Fixed point. The solution is derived with the help of Sumudu transform. Further, the authors employed fractional Adam-Bashforth method and Euler method to enumerate numerical results. The authors have used several values of fractional orders to present the outcomes graphically. The above calculations have been done with the help of MATLAB (R2016a). The numerical scheme used in the proposed study is valid and fruitful, and the same can be used to explore other real issues.

This investigation can be done for the real data sets.

This paper aims to express the solution of the HIV model in a better way with the effect of non-locality, this work is very useful.

In this work, HIV model is developed with the help of Atangana- Baleanu operator in Caputo sense. By using Banach Fixed point, the authors proved that the solution is unique. Also, the solution is presented with the help of Sumudu transform. The behaviors of the solutions are checked for different values of fractional order derivatives with the physical meaning with help of the Adam-Bashforth method and the Euler method.

Family planning (FP) services through the lens of human rights are not well known in Nepal. This study aims to assess Family Planning 2020: Rights and Empowerment Principles for Family Planning and identify factors affecting contraceptive use among HIV-infected women living in rural Far Western Nepal.

This study conducted a cross-sectional survey using self-designed proforma. To assess the association between contraceptive use and independent variables, this study calculated adjusted odd ratio (AOR) with 95% confidence interval (CI) using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) V.20.

Only 37.8% of participants had access to full range of contraceptive methods, and only 57.5% of participants received proper counseling. Agency/autonomy, transparency/accountability and voice/participation were practiced by 43.7%, 23.4% and 19.7% of participants, respectively. Husband’s support (AOR = 4.263; 95% CI: 1.640–11.086), availability of FP services in their locality (AOR = 2.497; 95% CI: 1.311–4.754), employment (AOR = 3.499; 95% CI: 1.186–10.328) and postpartum period (AOR = 0.103; 95% CI: 0.023–0.475) were significantly associated with contraceptive use.

Health-care providers’ and program managers’ perspectives were not examined.

Findings of this study will be useful for making strategic plan on human rights-based approach to FP.

Expanding access to contraceptive information and services and strengthening autonomy, accountability and participation are key to human rights-based approach to FP.

This study identified that inadequate counselling, nonavailability of full range of contraceptive methods, low level of autonomy, accountability and participation were key bottlenecks in fulfilling human rights-based approach to FP.

Women involved in the carceral system (CS) experience several conditions that increase their risk for HIV (e.g. high rates of substance use, psychiatric disorders, histories of victimization). The purpose of this study is to explore perspectives on potential strategies to connect women in the CS to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services.

This study conducted in-depth interviews with 27 women involved in the CS eligible for PrEP. Using vignettes, interviews explored attitudes, barriers and facilitators toward PrEP screening, referral and linkage facilitated via a CS stakeholder, an mHealth application or providing PrEP service referrals during detention via a navigator.

Most women were, on average, 41.3 years, from racial and ethnic minority groups (56% black/African American; 19% Latinx). Inductive thematic analysis revealed CS involved women expressed mostly positive attitudes toward CS-based PrEP implementation. Younger women were more accepting of and interested in mHealth interventions. Implementation facilitators included leveraging relationships with trusted allies (e.g. “peers”) and existing systems collaborations. Recommended implementation strategies included providing HIV and PrEP-specific education and training for system stakeholders and addressing issues related to privacy, system mistrust and stigma.

Results provide a critical foundation for the implementation of interventions to improve PrEP access for women involved in the CS and have important implications for implementation strategies for all adults involved in the CS. Improving access to PrEP among this population may also support progress toward addressing national disparities in PrEP uptake, where women, black and Latinx populations have substantial unmet need.

This intensified case finding study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of tuberculosis (TB) disease among people with HIV entering the largest prison in Malaysia.

The study was conducted in Kajang prison, starting in July 2013 in the men’s prison and June 2015 in the women’s prison. Individuals tested positive for HIV infection, during the mandatory HIV testing at the prison entry, were consecutively recruited over five months at each prison. Consented participants were interviewed using a structured questionnaire and asked to submit two sputum samples that were assessed using GeneXpert MTB/RIF (Xpert) and culture, irrespective of clinical presentation. Factors associated with active TB (defined as a positive result on either Xpert or culture) were assessed using regression analyses.

Overall, 214 incarcerated people with HIV were recruited. Most were men (84.6%), Malaysians (84.1%) and people who inject drugs (67.8%). The mean age was 37.5 (SD 8.2) years, and median CD4 lymphocyte count was 376 cells/mL (IQR 232–526). Overall, 27 (12.6%) TB cases were identified, which was independently associated with scores of five or more on the World Health Organization clinical scoring system for prisons (ARR 2.90 [95% CI 1.48–5.68]).

Limited data exists about the prevalence of TB disease at prison entry, globally and none from Malaysia. The reported high prevalence of TB disease in the study adds an important and highly needed information to design comprehensive TB control programmes in prisons.

A consensus in the literature is that anti-gay prejudice has a negative impact on HIV programming for men who have sex with men (MSM). This paper aims to analyse the prevalence and predictors of anti-gay prejudice in Barbados, an island in the Caribbean, and possible impacts on the full recognition of the right to health care.

The study used nationally representative data obtained from the Caribbean Development Research Services capturing anti-gay prejudice in Barbados in 2004, 2013 and 2019. The data were analysed using logit models and ordinary least squares regression.

The share of persons who expressed feelings of hatred towards gays and lesbians did not change significantly over the period. Social distance attitudes improved between 2004 and 2013 but have not changed since. Men generally expressed more prejudice than women and male sexual prejudice could be localised to three groups – men without tertiary education, men under 51 and members of non-Christian religions. Meanwhile, there was little consistency in the predictors of women’s attitudes over the period.

This study provides insights into the trends in attitudes towards sexual minorities in a developing country. The main conclusion is that although health care is provided as a universal right to all Barbadians, a strictly medical approach to HIV prevention among MSM in countries with high levels of anti-gay prejudice is insufficient.