HIVisions - We’ll Need More than Apples: Medical professionals on the continuum of HIV services in the Philippines
By Jan Gabriel Castañeda The HIV crisis has gone on for four decades, and for four decades the world has struggled against it. Doctors, scientists, educators, policy makers, writers, artists -- people of all walks and all colors have, in their own ways, sought to make sense of this crisis and its relationship with society. From citizens to states, from medicine to prayer, from cures to cries for reform, people’s visions of how to respond to the crisis are as diverse as the people who bear its scars. The goal of this series is to give you a glimpse of these visions: the roles people of different passions and disciplines have played in this crisis that, as of March 2016 as recorded by the Department of Health’s Epidemiology Bureau, is infecting 25 Filipinos daily. The phrase "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is a troublesome one. Besides being an adage to a complicated colonial heritage, it's not even that good (native fruits like langka and durian are far more nut...