Shoved, cursed and ridiculed, Nisha's hospital visits were always stressful as a transgender woman and got worse after she was diagnosed as HIV-positive. But a new app introduced as part of a drive to end an HIV epidemic in India by 2030 is providing her and the transgender community better access to doctors, lifesaving drugs - and hope - although it has raised concerns about digital privacy.

India has the world's third largest population living with HIV - 2.1 million people - according to UNAIDS, with recognition that help is needed in the transgender community where the prevalence is 3.1% compared to 0.26% among all adults.

Nisha tested HIV positive last year after earning a living as a sex worker in New Delhi. On the job, she said, condoms would often break or she would not use one for more money.

"That was a bad idea. I ended up with HIV. I felt suicidal after I found out," Nisha, 29, a trans woman who goes by one name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "It didn't help that going to the hospital was torturous. People made faces, passed lewd comments ... a doctor even kicked me out."

Despite the Supreme Court recognising India's 2 million transgender people as a third gender with equal rights in 2014, they are often kicked out by their families and denied jobs, education and healthcare, leading them to begging or sex work.

Trans women like Nisha say they face "double discrimination" and the risk of being shunned and abused - first because of their gender identity and then because of their HIV status. But a counselling programme along with a new app is helping health workers track down HIV-positive transgender people, monitor their treatment and link them to doctors and antiretroviral therapy (ART) to suppress the AIDS virus. Read more via Reuters