Partners In Health (PIH) is an international nonprofit public health organization founded in 1987 by Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, Thomas J. White, Todd McCormack, and Jim Yong Kim.
HIV/AIDS in India is an epidemic. The National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO) estimated that 3.14 million people lived with HIV/AIDS in India in 2023. Despite being home to the world's third-largest population of persons with HIV/AIDS, the AIDS prevalence rate in India is lower than that of many other countries. In 2016, India's AIDS prevalence rate stood at approximately 0.30%—the 80th highest in the world. Treatment of HIV/AIDS is via a combination of antiretroviral drugs and education programs to help people avoid infection.
Raising Malawi is a charity non-profit organization that was founded by Madonna and Michael Berg in 2006. It is dedicated to helping with the extreme poverty and hardship endured by Malawi's one million orphans, primarily through health and education programming. Initially, the "Raising Malawi Academy for Girls" was to be constructed but following an audit by the Global Philanthropy Group, which questioned expenditure on salaries and benefits as well as the management capacity and culture, the charity's school headmistress resigned in October 2010 and the project was scrapped.
Deficient sanitation systems, poor nutrition, and inadequate health services have pushed Haiti to the bottom of the World Bank’s rankings of health indicators. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, 80 percent of Haiti’s population lives below the poverty line. In fact, 75% of the Haitian population lives off of $2.50 per day. Consequently, malnutrition is a significant problem. Half the population can be categorized as "food insecure," and half of all Haitian children are undersized as a result of malnutrition. Less than half the population has access to clean drinking water, a rate that compares poorly even with other less-developed nations. Haiti's healthy life expectancy at birth is 63 years. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that only 43 percent of the target population receives the recommended immunizations.
Founded in 2000, ADI's goal is to improve the health of people in remote and rural areas of Papua New Guinea (PNG). ADI specialises in Doctor Supervised Integrated Health Patrols, deploying volunteer doctors and health managers to work in partnership with local health providers to provide medical treatment to save lives and reduce suffering, community health education to reduce preventable illness and disease, and training to build the capacity of local health workers.
Angola has a large HIV/AIDS infected population, however, it has one of the lowest prevalence rates in the Southern Africa zone. The status of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Angola is expected to change within the near future due to several forms of behavioral, cultural, and economic characteristics within the country such as lack of knowledge and education, low levels of condom use, the frequency of sex and number of sex partners, economic disparities and migration. There is a significant amount of work being done in Angola to combat the epidemic, but most aid is coming from outside of the country.
As of 2012, approximately 1,100,000 people in Malawi are HIV-positive, which represents 10.8% of the country's population. Because the Malawian government was initially slow to respond to the epidemic under the leadership of Hastings Banda (1966–1994), the prevalence of HIV/AIDS increased drastically between 1985, when the disease was first identified in Malawi, and 1993, when HIV prevalence rates were estimated to be as high as 30% among pregnant women. The Malawian food crisis in 2002 resulted, at least in part, from a loss of agricultural productivity due to the prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Various degrees of government involvement under the leadership of Bakili Muluzi (1994–2004) and Bingu wa Mutharika (2004–2012) resulted in a gradual decline in HIV prevalence, and, in 2003, many people living in Malawi gained access to antiretroviral therapy. Condoms have become more widely available to the public through non-governmental organizations, and more Malawians are taking advantage of HIV testing services.
Mozambique is a country particularly hard-hit by the HIV/AIDS epidemic. According to 2008 UNAIDS estimates, this southeast African nation has the 8th highest HIV rate in the world. With 1,600,000 Mozambicans living with HIV, 990,000 of which are women and children, Mozambique's government realizes that much work must be done to eradicate this infectious disease. To reduce HIV/AIDS within the country, Mozambique has partnered with numerous global organizations to provide its citizens with augmented access to antiretroviral therapy and prevention techniques, such as condom use. A surge toward the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS in women and children has additionally aided in Mozambique's aim to fulfill its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Nevertheless, HIV/AIDS has made a drastic impact on Mozambique; individual risk behaviors are still greatly influenced by social norms, and much still needs to be done to address the epidemic and provide care and treatment to those in need.
Rwanda faces a generalized epidemic, with an HIV prevalence rate of 3.1 percent among adults ages 15 to 49. The prevalence rate has remained relatively stable, with an overall decline since the late 1990s, partly due to improved HIV surveillance methodology. In general, HIV prevalence is higher in urban areas than in rural areas, and women are at higher risk of HIV infection than men. Young women ages 15 to 24 are twice as likely to be infected with HIV as young men in the same age group. Populations at higher risk of HIV infection include people in prostitution and men attending clinics for sexually transmitted infections.
With less than 0.1 percent of the population estimated to be HIV-positive, Bangladesh is a low HIV-prevalence country.
With less than 1 percent of the population estimated to be HIV-positive, Egypt is a low-HIV-prevalence country. However, between the years 2006 and 2011, HIV prevalence rates in Egypt increased tenfold. Until 2011, the average number of new cases of HIV in Egypt was 400 per year. But, in 2012 and 2013 it increased to about 600 new cases and in 2014 it reached 880 new cases per year. According to UNAIDS 2016 statistics, there are about 11,000 people currently living with HIV in Egypt. The Ministry of Health and Population reported in 2020 over 13,000 Egyptians are living with HIV/AIDS. However, unsafe behaviors among most-at-risk populations and limited condom usage among the general population place Egypt at risk of a broader epidemic.
In South Africa, private and public health systems exist in parallel. The public system serves the vast majority of the population. Authority and service delivery are divided between the national Department of Health, provincial health departments, and municipal health departments.
Bwindi Community Hospital was founded in 2003 by Scott and Carol Kellermann. It began as an outreach clinic under a tree, and has grown into a 112-bed hospital providing health care and health education services to a population of over 100,000 people in Uganda. The hospital began with a special mission to help the Batwa pygmies who were displaced from the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest after it was made a National Park in 1991. Since leaving the forest many Batwa have lived in extreme poverty and are affected by the health issues that poverty brings.
North Korea has a life expectancy of 72 years as of 2020. While North Korea is classified as a low-income country, the structure of North Korea's causes of death (2013) is unlike that of other low-income countries. Rather, causes of death are closer to the worldwide averages, with non-communicable diseases – such as cardiovascular disease – accounting for two-thirds of the total deaths.
Discrimination against people with HIV/AIDS or serophobia is the prejudice, fear, rejection, and stigmatization of people with HIV/AIDS. Marginalized, at-risk groups such as members of the LGBTQ+ community, intravenous drug users, and sex workers are most vulnerable to facing HIV/AIDS discrimination. The consequences of societal stigma against PLHIV are quite severe, as HIV/AIDS discrimination actively hinders access to HIV/AIDS screening and care around the world. Moreover, these negative stigmas become used against members of the LGBTQ+ community in the form of stereotypes held by physicians.
Healthcare in Malawi and its limited resources are inadequate to fully address factors plaguing the population, including infant mortality and the very high burden of diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis.
Healthcare in Belize is provided through both public and private healthcare systems. The Ministry of Health (MoH) is the government agency responsible for overseeing the entire health sector and is also the largest provider of public health services in Belize. The MoH offers affordable care to a majority of Belizeans with a strong focus on providing quality healthcare through a range of public programs and institutions.
Voluntary Health Services, popularly known as the VHS Hospital, is a multispecialty tertiary care referral hospital in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu, reportedly serving the economically weaker sections of the society. It was founded in 1958 by Krishnaswami Srinivas Sanjivi, an Indian physician, social worker and a winner of Padma Shri and Padma Bhushan awards and is run by a charitable non governmental organization of the same name. The hospital is situated along Rajiv Gandhi Salai at Taramani, in Chennai.
The San Francisco model of AIDS care began in 1983 in wards 86 and 5B of San Francisco General Hospital. The focus of this model was not only on the health of each patient with AIDS, but also on the well-being of each person. As AIDS was beginning to be treated as a significant epidemic, San Francisco General Hospital recognized the need to create new standards of care for a disease that had never before been experienced. Compassionate care has now become a priority worldwide and an expected standard in hospitals as there places a greater emphasis on the social, psychological, and economic aspects of treatment in addition to the medicine.
The health access and health vulnerabilities experienced by the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or questioning, intersex, asexual (LGBTQIA) community in South Korea are influenced by the state's continuous failure to pass anti-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The construction and reinforcement of the South Korean national subject, "kungmin," and the basis of Confucianism and Christian churches perpetuates heteronormativity, homophobia, discrimination, and harassment towards the LGBTQI community. The minority stress model can be used to explain the consequences of daily social stressors, like prejudice and discrimination, that sexual minorities face that result in a hostile social environment. Exposure to a hostile environment can lead to health disparities within the LGBTQI community, like higher rates of depression, suicide, suicide ideation, and health risk behavior. Korean public opinion and acceptance of the LGBTQI community have improved over the past two decades, but change has been slow, considering the increased opposition from Christian activist groups. In South Korea, obstacles to LGBTQI healthcare are characterized by discrimination, a lack of medical professionals and medical facilities trained to care for LGBTQI individuals, a lack of legal protection and regulation from governmental entities, and the lack of medical care coverage to provide for the health care needs of LGBTQI individuals. The presence of Korean LGBTQI organizations is a response to the lack of access to healthcare and human rights protection in South Korea. It is also important to note that research that focuses on Korean LGBTQI health access and vulnerabilities is limited in quantity and quality as pushback from the public and government continues.
