Old LY Site

By Reiner “Meow” Grospe with Kelvin Vistan We have seen all types of love – that is all types of couples. There are heterosexual couples, LGBTQI+ couples, and there are also serodiscordant couples. Serodiscordant couples are partners in which one is positive of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the other is negative.Our HIV status should not be an issue, and it will not be if people free themselves from the social stigma brought about by misinformation on HIV and AIDS.   But how come the person living with HIV is able to prevent the transmission of the virus to their seronegative partner? Are they not having sex? They are, and thanks to science because, aside from the couple protecting themselves from sexually transmitted infections with correct and consistent condom use , the seronegative partner may also take Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) , which further lessens the chance of being infected. It is also worthy to mention the effectiveness of the Anti-Retroviral Therapy of ...

By Aaron Philip dela Cruz The Philippines participated in commemorating The World AIDS Day 2016 event last Thursday, 1 December. In the Quezon City Memorial Circle, several non-government organizations along with directives from the Department of Health (DOH), Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS(UNAIDS), and the World Health Organization (WHO) joined together to lead the advocacy of promoting sexual health awareness and ending the stigma that still looms around HIV/ AIDS today. The event was interactive in nature as participants were given free food and T-shirts they could wear for the event. Participants can also write down their sentiments and support for the cause on a white freedom wall near the entrance. Upon registration, people are each given passports containing a list of the participating organizations in which people were urged to visit all of the booths where they may receive collectible stamps for their passports as they go over a number of interactive games and info...

By Raybert Domingo As a contribution to the celebration of the World AIDS Day on 01 December, HIV prevention advocacy group LoveYourself, Inc. introduces a new HIV prevention method called Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) for HIV during the #HackingHIV event on Tuesday night (29 November) at MyCinema Greenbelt 3 in Makati City. Supported by Philippine Department of Health, AmFAR and World Health Organization, LoveYourself was the chosen organization to pioneer the launching of PrEP in the Philippines under the banner program #PrEPPilipinas Program in which initial demonstration is envisioned to be executed within the first quarter of 2017. PrEP is an HIV medicine comprised of tenofovir and emtricitabine, taken daily to lower the chances of contracting the virus. Co-primary investigator of the PrEP Pilipinas project and LoveYourself Senior Director Christopher M. Lagman emphasized that “PrEP shouldn’t be taken as a replacement to current prevention measures, but an option and another lev...

By Kris Tangco Today is World AIDS Day, and LoveYourself joins the global community in its observance by hosting three events: an empowering pageant, an HIV testing day and an HIV awareness campaign with media trailblazer Rappler. World AIDS Day is  designated on the first day of December, and has been commemorated since 1988 to raise awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by HIV infection, as well as to remember those who have died of the disease.   The Joint United Nations Programme on AIDS , known more commonly as UNAIDS , reports that at the end of 2014, 36.9 million people globally were living with HIV, with 2 million new infections in the said year. Also from 2000 until 2014, 25.3 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses, while 15.8 million people have access to antiretroviral (ARV) therapy as of June 2015.  Philippines: AIDS epidemic in-the-making While the number of infections worldwide has dropped from 3.1 million in 2000 to 2 million in 2014, a 35% de...

Roughly 1 of 4 new HIV cases now come from Filipino youth aged 15 to 24. Alarmed by this trend, student leaders recently partnered with LoveYourself to take an HIV test , hoping to encourage more youth to know their HIV status and practice safer sex. 13 student council representatives from different schools trooped to the LoveYourself hub in Malate late last month. They joined 40 other visitors to avail of the free HIV testing and counseling services at the community center. “It has come to our attention as student leaders that the incidence of HIV in the Philippines has been on a rapid increase. What bothered us more is the fact that a significant portion of these recent increases in HIV incidences come from the youth sector,” explained Arjay Mercado, head of the Gender Committee of the U.P. Diliman University Student Council, and one of the student leaders from the Student Council Association of the Philippines (SCAP), which led the initiative. “With this in our minds, we decided...

iSupport World AIDS Day (#iSupportWAD) First and foremost, we would like to say our biggest THANK YOU to everyone who supported iSupport  for World AIDS Day (WAD). You guys have no idea how huge and strong your impact was to everyone. Your simple way of changing your profile photos to iSupport Poster on both your Facebook and Twitter accounts and joining our Tweetfest using the hash-tag  #iSupportWAD  were extremely helpful in educating our online friends. (You may refer to the link here  for the iSupport Poster and the TweetFest) . In addition, we would like to share some photos during the World AIDS Day Parade in Cebu. See how cute our banner! The Love Yourself Cebu Team We assure you that this is just the start of a whole new adventure in our continued fight against HIV/AIDS and the stigma that goes along with it. We can't wait for our lined-up events for Christmas and for the year 2013 -- events that you have never experienced before! We look forwa...