HIV Continum of Care in the Philippines

We have been working on HIV education, testing, and access to care in Davao City, Phillippines since 2018.  After conducting a community assessment, we orchestrated a bi-national training with Department of Health (DOH) where our team and a group of local community leaders (including doctors, social workers, and pastors) were certified in counseling and testing in the Philippines.  Since then, our research has been published in peer reviewed medical journals.  We are now entering a phase where we will implement HIV counseling and rapid testing in a local clinic.

Reports suggest that less than 1% of the Philippines' population has been diagnosed with HIV, but only 2.3% of the entire population has been tested. In the last ten years (2014-2024), the Philippines' HIV cases have increased by over 400%, even with extremely low testing rates! DOH recently reported that 80% of new HIV cases are from youth and young adults ages 15-34 years old. This highlights the need for increased education, counseling, and testing services across the country. When a person living with HIV gets on medication, they can live to a normal life expectancy and not spread the disease to others. There is so much hope in identifying those living with the disease so they can get care and stop the spread of disease. We believe that our interdisciplinary collaboration can help the City of Davao improve testing and prevention to reduce the overall burden of disease.

Our goal of $5,000 will help purchase test kits and support a team member we are sending for 3 months to help launch the HIV program at the local clinic.