Why we must provide treatment information

Rajiv Kafle

Nepal

We had no formal written proposal or mechanism for adapting these materials. In the past we worked with Family Health International and had to go through many cycles of review, but not when we adapted the i-Base materials. We included things in our books that are not in the national HIV treatment protocol. But our goal was to include the information we thought was important – that we thought should be shared. For example, we had a chapter on sperm washing, and a government officer was upset with this. But we didn’t care. It was important for people to know that this was available in some countries.

After the books were developed we ran training workshops and we got feedback from the people who used the materials. After two years of working on this, I see changes in the community. I hear people talking about how a specific drug in their TB regimen is interacting with other drugs in their HIV regimen. A few years ago no one was on ARVs and now they are thinking about interactions with their ARVs.

This web presentation is based on a book with photographs by Wolfgang Tillmans. It follows a global meeting held in Cape Town in 2006 organised by the Treatment Action Campaign, South Africa and i-Base, England.