via IRIN
Excerpt:
According to Mapping Pathways, the ideal approach to implementing treatment as prevention should consider not only the clinical goal of efficacy (works in a lab), but also effectiveness (how to apply the solution in a community).
“I know that if you get anti-retroviral drugs into someone’s blood, they suppress the virus. We have amazing proof of that - it’s a major scientific breakthrough in the history of humankind,” said Linda-Gail Bekker, chief operating officer of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, based in South Africa.
“But now we have to put this together so it works, which means engaging with a wide range of human beings who live very different lives than those of us who run these programmes might imagine,” she said.
Effectiveness requires behaviour change and, therefore, varies across cultures, governments, and
communities based on “the firms that produce the drugs, the healthcare clinics that deliver the drugs, the community centres that provide education, and the partnerships developed,” according to Mapping Pathways.
“Human beings will behave like human beings. What does that mean? Well, social sciences have been trying to figure that out for centuries and don’t have one single theory, so why should our HIV programmes?” asked Bekker.
“The notion that in HIV programmes `one size fits all’ has backfired on us and it has been a humbling moment for those of us who work in this field.”
Read the whole article on IRIN.
[Please look for us on Facebook here www.facebook.com/MappingPathways and you can follow us on Twitter @mappingpathways as well.]
According to Mapping Pathways, the ideal approach to implementing treatment as prevention should consider not only the clinical goal of efficacy (works in a lab), but also effectiveness (how to apply the solution in a community).
“I know that if you get anti-retroviral drugs into someone’s blood, they suppress the virus. We have amazing proof of that - it’s a major scientific breakthrough in the history of humankind,” said Linda-Gail Bekker, chief operating officer of the Desmond Tutu HIV Foundation, based in South Africa.
“But now we have to put this together so it works, which means engaging with a wide range of human beings who live very different lives than those of us who run these programmes might imagine,” she said.
Effectiveness requires behaviour change and, therefore, varies across cultures, governments, and
communities based on “the firms that produce the drugs, the healthcare clinics that deliver the drugs, the community centres that provide education, and the partnerships developed,” according to Mapping Pathways. “Human beings will behave like human beings. What does that mean? Well, social sciences have been trying to figure that out for centuries and don’t have one single theory, so why should our HIV programmes?” asked Bekker.
“The notion that in HIV programmes `one size fits all’ has backfired on us and it has been a humbling moment for those of us who work in this field.”
Read the whole article on IRIN.
[Please look for us on Facebook here www.facebook.com/MappingPathways and you can follow us on Twitter @mappingpathways as well.]
