My interest in HIV/AIDS started in 2004, when I discovered that both my mother and younger sister were HIV positive. Back then I was working at the District Hospital Bota Lime as a contract worker under the Heavy Indebted Poor Country (HIPC) initiative.

I was the one who carried out the tests, and the sad news pushed me to deepen my knowledge of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Thanks to the scientific advancements and my counseling and guidance, my mother and sister are today using antiretroviral therapy (ART) and are in general good health.

After my training on HIV/AIDS testing and counseling my commitment grew steadily, and I tried to make sure that every single person who came for an HIV test received proper counseling after the response. More...

The International AIDS Society (IAS) congratulates the scientific journal The Lancet for its decision to encourage researchers to enrol more women into clinical trials and to plan to analyse data by sex as a matter of routine, not only when known to be scientifically appropriate.

The step taken by the Lancet follows scientific evidence showing that men and women experience disease and respond to treatment in different ways. A study published recently by the same journal showed that women who smoke have a higher risk of coronary heart disease and lung cancer than male smokers. Also, in many diseases women have more side-effects from treatment than men, due to differences in body surface areas, body mass and amount of adipose tissue. Similar studies show how being female or male can be an important factor of health, illness and response to treatment than what we know now, and The Lancet’s decision to encourage a gender-oriented policy for clinical trials will hopefully help to provide more data on this aspect. More...