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  By Carlos Diego A. Rozul Safe Spaces PH launches a new way to access peer-led sexual health information. Meet Enzo, your friendly sexual health chatbot. Prepared with quips, gifs, and tips, Enzo has got you covered in preventing HIV transmission from testing to treatment! Try him out on Facebook Messenger at m.me/safespacesph .  We wanted to make Safe Spaces PH a gateway for sexual health information, and since we are often on our social media, we went for a chatbot for people to easier navigate and access the information that they need, instead of searching for specific posts said Paul Junio, Safe Spaces PH Chatbot Developer. Peer-level information sharing is still an integral part of how people access information. We sometimes find ourselves looking towards them in verifying what we’ve learned from our internet search. This may be through our friends, community leaders, or even your trusted community based organizations. While the current pandemic protocols limit the rea...

By Niño Villalino LoveYourself volunteers together with Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. employees during the HIV Caravan at Shell Cebu Regional Office Mandaue City  — LoveYourself Cebu partnered with Pilipinas Shell  Petroleum Corp.  (PSPC) for HIV awareness and screening at its Cebu Regional Office in Mandaue City on January 11, 2020. This is the first caravan organized by LoveYourself Cebu for this year. “It’s only apt that we start our caravans with Pilipinas Shell, one of our main funders,” said Dennis Tagamolila, head of LoveYourself University (LoveU) in Cebu, the training arm of LoveYourself. Jan Estrada, head of LoveYourself Cebu, said that the organization will continue to partner with several companies and organizations this year to reach more people. “We are happy that several companies and organizations join us in our advocacy. We have several caravans in the pipeline, and there are several who already expressed plans of inviting us.” In 2019, LoveYourself Ceb...

Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray Leads HIV Mass Screening MANILA, PHILIPPINES – After Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray visited LoveYourself, Inc. on Wednesday (27 February), the Filipina beauty queen invites everyone to get tested on 2 March 2019, Saturday  at LoveYourself community centers and its partner community-based organization. Dubbed as THIS IS ME: The Silver Lining HIV Screening Day, the purposeful event is a simultaneous HIV testing in Metro Manila, Cavite, Pampanga, Palawan, Cagayan de Oro and Zamboanga. Interested individuals are encouraged to sign up at  http://go.loveyourself.ph/ThisIsMeCatriona . Joining LoveYourself on this endeavor are Decent Image of South Signal Association from Taguig, Juan AVES Love and Light, Cavite Positive Action Group The JCH Advocacy Inc., Posi+ive Movement and Project H4 in Luzon, Family Planning Organization of the Philippines – IloIlo in the Visayas, and Kagay-an PLUS - Preserving Life, Uniting Society Inc., Olympus Society of Dav...

By: Ronald Bugarin Every newly diagnosed Person Living with HIV (PLHIV) has to absorb a wealth of information about their journey towards and in treatment.  Among the multitude of terms to remember, most commonly used are “ CD4 Count ” and “ Viral Load ” but what do these terms really mean and how important are they to every PLHIV who are on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) ? CD4 Count CD4 cells (also known as T-cells, or T helper cells) are white blood cells that fight off infections that enter the body.  Its main function is to send signals upon entry of a virus or bacteria to other types of immune cells, including CD8 cells to fight off the cells infected by bacteria and viruses. Upon successful HIV transmission in the body, the virus enters the CD4 cells and replicates after which, new copies of the virus will then be released and attaches to other CD4 cells. This ultimately opens the body to possible opportunistic infections due to the continuous decline of the CD4 and CD8 c...

By Carlos Diego A. Rozul From the booming sounds during a party to the gentle whispers from a significant other, the sense of hearing plays a significant role in making our days more vibrant. For hearing people, it is an essential to understand and appropriately respond to verbal communication. In recent years, researchers [1] in the field of HIV care has put their attention towards the hearing health of people living with HIV (PLHIV). A 2013 integrative review by Assuiti, Lanzoni, dos Santos, Erdmann, and Meirelles [2] revealed that there was not enough evidence for a direct association or implication of antiretroviral therapy (ART) and hearing loss, however they suggested to investigate the associated factors further due to inconclusive data. Image retreived from https://www.flickr.com/photos/photobythomas/11535403595/in/album-72157644872472185/ Hearing Complaints among PLHIV According to van der Westhuizen, Swanepoel, Heinze, and  Hofmeyr [3] PLHIV were more likely to report ...