Arabic digital health platform

HIV poses a major health challenge in many countries, particularly in the North Africa and Middle East (MENA) region. Treatment education plays a vital role in the fight against HIV. People living with HIV (PLHIV) require lifelong treatment to reduce passing on the virus and to maintain their immune system. Despite access to treatment, psychosocial support remains insufficient, particularly adherence support. Currently, only Morocco has a therapeutic treatment education programme. However, this is limited to approximately two hospital appointments per year, leaving people living with HIV often alone with unanswered questions related to side effects and treatment management, which can be affected by situations such as travel, fasting during Ramadan, taking other medications, becoming pregnant or psychological problems. Treatment education programmes, where they exist, generally focus on existing treatments, without necessarily considering therapeutic advances such as more optimal, easy-to-take, less expensive treatments, side effects and risk of resistance.

ITPC-MENA believes that treatment information should be available before treatment and that providing up-to-date treatment information can drive increased demand and improve adherence and quality of care for PLHIV. Given the increasing popularity of mobile applications with populations at risk of HIV, such as MSM and sex workers, ITPC-MENA has developed a digital health platform.

Information on the treatment of HIV in Arabic is also almost non-existent. In response, ITPC-MENA has developed an Arabic guide to antiretroviral treatment and runs a Facebook page named “Ilaji,” launched in 2016 in Arabic, which provides information to people living with HIV, covering key treatment-related issues.