Final Review Paper

The final review paper is an open-book take-home examination of your learning in this unit. It is also an exercise in critical and reflective thinking. Modest referencing only is necessary.

Please note that each question should be responded to in no more than 2-3 paragraphs (400 words). Concise answers that target the key issues are required. Please do NOT exceed 440 words for any question.

Question 1
Of the Asia Pacific countries with populations of more than 10 million people, very few have escaped significant epidemics of HIV. To date, Bangladesh, Japan, the Philippines and South Korea are four very different countries with low prevalence.

Posit a brief explanation for each of these four countries as to why this might be the case.

Question 2
When violent and armed conflicts are in progress, countries involved can have thousands of troops in the fields, thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons inside and across their borders and significant peacekeeping forces present in the country.

List and discuss four key linkages between war or peacekeeping activities and the rapid spread of HIV and STI and comment whether these two variables are necessarily related.

Question 3
It is now a treatments-oriented world as evidenced by such initiatives as the 3 by 5 program of the World Health Organization which aimed to provide antiretroviral drugs to 3 million people in developing countries by 2005.

Outline at least two key challenges to maintaining HIV prevention in this current treatments-oriented climate and state why you think access to treatments programs may fail in some countries.

Question 4
It is important to have good biological and behavioural surveillance data about injecting drug users in Asia Pacific countries but these can be very difficult to obtain.

Outline three reasons why such data are important and describe three approaches for collecting it. In addition, name three barriers which work against collecting good data about this priority group.

Question 5
You conclude the following in your qualitative study investigating female sex workers in urban Myanmar and their risk of HIV infection:

“Female sex workers in Myanmar are highly marginalised and difficult to access due to legal, political, cultural and social factors. Their reported rates of unsafe sexual practice, their insufficient HIV/STI education, their social stigmatisation, Myanmar s poor health infrastructure and inadequate public health programs and their poor access to failing health services makes them particularly vulnerable to HIV and STIs.”

List and briefly discuss four feasible responses which you might recommend as a result of your study.