by Purple Chrystyl Romero

For six years, Leo*, a 29-year old Filipino man, managed to keep the fact that he had been infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) from his family. But that secret was exposed in the worst possible manner last month, when a traffic officer at a checkpoint in Manila, installed due to the coronavirus lockdown, shouted it out for all the world to hear.

Like 50 million other people in the Philippines, Leo has been affected by the lockdown imposed by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on the central region of Luzon from March 16 to April 30, to curb the transmission of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

UNAIDS has warned that by this year, half of new HIV cases in Southeast Asia are projected to be among males having sex with males. The Thailand-based Asia Pacific Coalition on Male Sexual Health, which advocates for better health protection measures for LGBTQI people, said that finding was compounded by the fact that this group already faces social exclusion and difficulties in accessing economic opportunities, limiting their means to pay for treatment.

To fill this gap, community organisations in the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Pakistan have adopted a common strategy to deliver ARV. Read more via SCMP