Treatment training manual

Notes for advocates

This training resource now has nine related chapters. The format is very simple for each one. Please note that some chapters have been updated more recently than others.

It is written for people who do not have a scientific background or medical training.

  • Some of the sessions are very short, and have simple questions. This is so that anyone can start learning about HIV treatment ART), and in turn pass that information on to others.
  • The material has been written in a way that makes it easier to then explain the information again to other people without a medical background.
  • Understanding and completing this course will give a good grasp of 90% of the issues involved in HIV and treatment.
  • You do not need to know everything about each area in detail, and it will be too much to deal with if you try to learn everything straight away.
  • The aim for each section is to provide a general understanding for each area. This will form the structure for more advanced training and your own research in the future.
  • Most people don’t want to know too much about HIV science. So long as they are well and their ART is working, they just want to get on with their lives. But there are still good reasons to know about some of the science of ART if you are to trust in things that are too small to see with your own eyes. We can’t see a virus, or a CD4 cell or any of the things that are tested in blood with the naked eye. We can’t see whether one pill or another will work better or at all.
  • The knowledge in this manual is a powerful tool for understanding HIV and ART and for getting better care for you and others.

This course is mainly written by treatment advocates who have had no formal medical training and who are also living with HIV.  We havve tried to remember the biggest surprises that we found as we developed our own treatment knowledge.

This resource is part of a copyright-free project that is available on the i-Base website to download in various formats, or to work online. As with other treatment information produced by i-Base we encourage translations into other languages.

Last updated: 1 January 2023.