logo
Cambodia gives high priority to people's health, HIV AIDS prevention control: PM Hun

Cambodia gives high priority to people's health, HIV AIDS prevention control: PM Hun

Hans India13-05-2025
Phnom Penh: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said on Tuesday that the government gave high priority to people's health and HIV/AIDS prevention and control.
He made the remarks during a meeting with Winnie Byanyima, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive director of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), at the Peace Palace in the capital Phnom Penh, said a news release from the prime minister's spokesperson unit.
"Samdech Thipadei highlighted the attention of the Royal Government of Cambodia in the fight against HIV/AIDS through the launches of many policies and strategic action plans," the news release said.
Samdech Thipadei is the honorific title of Hun Manet.
"He said the Royal Government of Cambodia has given high priority to strengthening the health sector, especially improving people's well-being," the news release added.
"When we talk about building human capital, we must pay attention to our people's health," the prime minister said.
Hun Manet thanked the UN for its contribution to Cambodia's socio-economic development and highly appreciated UNAIDS for its active participation in the fight against HIV/AIDS in the Southeast Asian country.
HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, Xinhua news agency reported.
For her part, Byanyima commended Cambodia's remarkable progress in all sectors and outstanding achievements in responding to HIV/AIDS.
"Cambodia's successful response to HIV/AIDS has not only reduced the rate of new HIV infections, but has also contributed to regional and global efforts in combating HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases," she said.
She reaffirmed UNAIDS' continued support to Cambodia to achieve the 95-95-95 HIV treatment targets.
The targets mean 95 per cent of the people who are living with HIV know their HIV status, 95 per cent of the people who know that they are living with HIV are on lifesaving antiretroviral treatment, and 95 per cent of people under treatment are virally suppressed.
According to the news release, the kingdom has so far achieved a response rate of 92-100-98.
The National Centre for HIV/AIDS, Dermatology and Sexually Transmitted Diseases (NCHADS) said Cambodia has roughly 76,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, of which 69,413 have received antiretroviral drugs.
Some 7,000 people were still unaware that they were infected with HIV, and had not yet received antiretroviral drugs, the NCHADS said.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

T.N. becomes first state in the country to integrate ‘predicted possibility of TB deaths' among patients into its elimination programme
T.N. becomes first state in the country to integrate ‘predicted possibility of TB deaths' among patients into its elimination programme

The Hindu

time2 hours ago

  • The Hindu

T.N. becomes first state in the country to integrate ‘predicted possibility of TB deaths' among patients into its elimination programme

To reduce the average time from diagnosis to hospital admission for severely ill tuberculosis (TB) patients Tamil Nadu has become the first state in the country to integrate a model, which predicts the possibility of TB deaths among patients, with the existing state-wide application which screens them at diagnosis. The predictive model, developed by the ICMR National Institute of Epidemiology (ICMR-NIE), which was launched last week and will aid the State in bringing down the TB mortality rate said Asha Frederick, State TB Officer of Tamil Nadu. She added that the predictive death model has been developed using data from nearly 56,000 TB patients diagnosed in public health facilities across Tamil Nadu between July 2022 and June 2023. Globally, India has the highest burden of TB with two deaths occurring every three minutes. But these deaths can be prevented. With proper care and treatment, TB patients can be cured, notes the World Health Organisation. Research further adds that TB is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and more than 70% of the deaths of TB patients occur during the first two months of treatment. Speaking about the addition of the new feature in the Tamil Nadu TB elimination programme Dr. Frederick explained that this new addition will merge with the existing TB SeWA (Severe TB Web Application) which has been in use since 2022 under the state's differentiated care model initiative Tamil Nadu - Kasanoi Erappila Thittam (TN-KET). 'What this new feature will do is to alert frontline staff on how to recognise a severely ill TB patient – from a given list of medical indications including body weight, ability to stand without support, etc -- so that he is given priority in hospital admission and that treatment is initiated without delay. The predicted probability of death ranges widely — from 10% to as high as 50%, depending on how many of the five risk factors are present. In contrast, for patients not flagged as severely ill, the predicted probability drops sharply to just 1–4 per cent,' explained Hemant Shewade, a senior scientiat at NIE. He added that while the average time from diagnosis to admission of a TB patient in Tamil Nadu is one day, around a quarter of severely ill patients still face delays of up to six days in the state. All 2,800 public health facilities in Tamil Nadu — from primary health centres to medical colleges — currently use the TB SeWA application alongside a paper-based triage tool. Old age, TB/HIV co-infection and a baseline body weight of <35 kg increased the mortality during TB treatment, notes a study titled 'Time to Death and Associated Factors among Tuberculosis Patients in Dangila Woreda, Northwest Ethiopia', which adds that a special follow up of TB patients during the intensive phase, of older patients and TB/HIV co-infected cases, as well as nutritionally supplementing for underweight patients may be important to consider as interventions to reduce deaths during TB treatment.

Tamil Nadu first to integrate ‘predicted possibility of TB deaths' in patients to its State TB elimination programme
Tamil Nadu first to integrate ‘predicted possibility of TB deaths' in patients to its State TB elimination programme

The Hindu

time8 hours ago

  • The Hindu

Tamil Nadu first to integrate ‘predicted possibility of TB deaths' in patients to its State TB elimination programme

To reduce the average time from diagnosis to hospital admission for severely ill tuberculosis (TB) patients, Tamil Nadu has become the first State in the country to integrate a model that predicts the possibility of TB deaths among patients with the existing State-wide application which screens them at diagnosis. The predictive model, developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Epidemiology (NIE) and launched last week, will aid the State in bringing down the TB mortality rate, Asha Frederick, State TB Officer, Tamil Nadu, said. The predictive death model has been developed using data from nearly 56,000 TB patients diagnosed in public health facilities across Tamil Nadu between July 2022 and June 2023, Dr. Frederick said. Research shows TB is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and more than 70% of TB deaths occur in the first two months of TB treatment. Globally, India has the highest burden of TB, with two deaths occurring every three minutes from TB. These deaths can be prevented. With proper care and treatment, TB patients can be cured, the World Health Organization has said. The addition of the new feature in the Tamil Nadu TB elimination programme, Dr. Frederick said, would merge it with the existing TB SeWA (Severe TB Web Application), in use since 2022 under the Tamil Nadu Kasanoi Erappila Thittam (TN-KET) differentiated care model initiative. 'What this new feature will do is to alert frontline staff on how to recognise a severely ill TB patient from a given list of medical indications, including body weight, ability to stand without support, etc., so that they are given priority in hospital admissions, and treatment is initiated without delay. The predicted probability of death ranges widely — from 10% to as high as 50%, depending on how many of the five risk factors are present. In contrast, for patients not flagged as severely ill, the predicted probability drops sharply to just 1% to 4%,' Hemant Shewade, senior scientist at the NIE, said. The average time from diagnosis to admission of a TB patient in Tamil Nadu is one day, and around a quarter of severely ill patients still face delays of up to six days in the State, Dr. Shewade said. All 2,800 public health facilities in Tamil Nadu — from primary health centres to medical colleges — currently use the TB SeWA application alongside a paper-based triage tool. Old age, TB/HIV co-infection, and a baseline body weight of <35 kg increase mortality during TB treatment, a study titled 'Time to Death and Associated Factors among Tuberculosis Patients in Dangila Woreda, Northwest Ethiopia' has found. Special follow-ups of TB patients during the intensive phase, and of older patients and TB/HIV co-infected cases, as well as nutritionally supplementing underweight patients, may be important interventions to consider in order to reduce deaths during TB treatment.

When an HIV Scientific Breakthrough Isn't Enough
When an HIV Scientific Breakthrough Isn't Enough

Mint

timea day ago

  • Mint

When an HIV Scientific Breakthrough Isn't Enough

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- A landmark breakthrough in HIV prevention — a scientific feat decades in the making — received final approval from the Food and Drug Administration last month. Gilead Sciences' lenacapavir is so effective that global health leaders had started to cautiously talk about the end of an epidemic that continues to kill more than 600,000 people each year. We should be celebrating its arrival. Instead, aid groups and the countries most affected by HIV are reeling from the Trump administration's relentless attacks on the global health infrastructure. Instead of perfecting plans for a rollout of the medication, they are scrambling to ensure people with HIV have the drugs they need to survive. Last year, I wrote about the stunning — or as one HIV expert described it, 'spine-chilling'— results from a large study of lenacapavir. None of the women and adolescents who were given the twice-yearly injection in the trial became infected with HIV. In a second study involving men who have sex with men, and transgender individuals who have sex with men, the treatment was 96% effective. Even better, Gilead is working on a newer version that could potentially offer protection for a year or more. That's about as close to an HIV vaccine we're likely to get — at least for many years. It's also the world's best shot of achieving the goal of ending HIV by 2030. For low- and middle-income countries that continue to face frustratingly stubborn infection rates, a twice-yearly drug could be a game-changer. Although existing treatments of daily pills do an excellent job at preventing infection, getting people to use them consistently has been difficult. There is the stigma attached to the pills. Ensuring patients return for frequent testing and refills is also challenging — as is simply remembering to take them daily. Consider the typical day of a mom with a newborn and it's easy to understand how six months of protection could make a real difference in lowering HIV cases in women and infants. Some experts have even suggested lenacapavir is our best chance of wiping out new infections in children. That was before the Trump administration abruptly shut down USAID, the lead agency behind Pepfar. The global initiative to combat HIV/AIDS is credited with saving an estimated 26 million lives since its inception in 2003. Although the administration granted a limited waiver to allow some HIV services to continue, funding is significantly restrained. As health workers grapple with fewer resources, their focus has shifted to people living with HIV. 'When the chips are down, you safeguard treatment because those people will die if they don't get their antiretroviral,' says Linda-Gail Bekker, director of the Desmund Tutu HIV Centre at the University of Cape Town. And yet, she said, 'prevention we know is an absolute cornerstone to bringing this epidemic under control.' Because the situation is so dynamic, it's been difficult to capture what's happening on the ground. The best current model suggests the administration's actions could result in at least 70,000 additional new infections, and another 5,000 deaths in the next five years. UCLA infectious disease epidemiologist Dvora Joseph Davey says that in 2024, the eight public health clinics in Cape Town — where she is based — saw three infants who were HIV-positive at birth. In the first five months of this year, they've already seen three babies born with the infection. She knows there will be more. One pregnant woman with HIV recently came into the clinic and, at 37 weeks, her viral load was dauntingly high. She'd skipped picking up her last three-month supply of pills. The nurse she'd been seeing was let go as part of the funding cuts, and no one was available to do a blood draw at her last visit, Davey says. If the people who, in theory, should still be benefiting from global aid are falling through the cracks, what hope do we have for prevention? Prevention efforts have already been severely disrupted in some countries. Supply is responsible for some of the upheaval, but the more complicated problem is getting the drugs to the people who need them most. 'We need low-cost product and also a low-cost delivery mode,' says Carmen Pérez Casas, senior strategy lead at Unitaid, a global health initiative hosted by the World Health Organization. The situation for the latter 'has changed radically,' she says. HIV prevention is not as simple as just handing out a prescription. It's first identifying those most at risk of infection, getting them tested to confirm they are negative, and offering counseling about their options. It's ensuring they return for more testing and the next dose of their medication. That requires a vast support network ranging from doctors and nurses to counselors, pharmacists, lab technicians, data scientists and more. Pepfar supported all of that infrastructure. In South Africa, for example, cuts have resulted in lost jobs for some 8,000 health workers focused on HIV. Aid groups are doing their best to ensure the breakthrough's promise is not entirely lost. Their first hurdle is bridging the gap to the arrival of low-cost generic lenacapavir, which isn't expected until sometime in 2027. (Gilead is allowing a handful of drug companies to make and sell generic forms of lenacapavir in the countries most heavily impacted by HIV.) Global health agencies are anxiously awaiting the company's price tag for those countries to understand how far their funding can be stretched. Then they need to get the drug to patients. Experts tell me they've scaled back their expectations given the upheaval with Pepfar. The Trump administration's termination of National Institutes of Health grants to foreign countries has created additional hurdles. It's been particularly devastating in South Africa, where the NIH supported a significant chunk of research related to HIV. That means less money to conduct so-called implementation studies for lenacapavir, which are crucial for understanding how to improve the drug's use in the real world. One simple thing the Trump administration could do is free up funding for prevention. Pepfar continues to operate under a waiver that only allows PrEP money to be spent for those who are pregnant or breastfeeding. Groundbreaking science alone won't end HIV. It must be paired with affordability and access. The Trump administration's callous cuts to global health efforts put all of those things at risk — including the promising future where HIV is brought to heel. More From Bloomberg Opinion: This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners. Lisa Jarvis is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering biotech, health care and the pharmaceutical industry. Previously, she was executive editor of Chemical & Engineering News. More stories like this are available on

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store