What Patients Want in HIV Treatment and Prevention: Malaysia

In this episode, Iskandar Azwa, MBChB, and patient advocate Andrew Tan Tze Tho discuss barriers to genuinely patient-centered HIV care in Malaysia and the surrounding region and offer calls to action for healthcare professionals for responding to patient preferences.

They discuss health literacy programs and other forms of effective health communication, especially with respect to disparate communities. They also address the prevalence of late presentation in Malaysia and the importance of getting people tested and into care earlier.

They then discuss the urgency of rapid initiation of antiretroviral therapy, discrepancies in access to health services, and stigma and discrimination.

Finally, they discuss the issues preventing newer antiretrovirals from being more readily available to people in the region; the importance of maintaining and refining patient-focused, differentiated care in the face of such disparities; and the role of advocates and healthcare professionals in helping to drive those improvements.