Cooper: TREAT Asia has made an enormous difference by highlighting the fact that HIV treatment and care in Asia is still very patchy. Where has its work had the greatest impact?ĭr. TREAT Asia Report: As an advisor to TREAT Asia, you have watched the network develop since its inception. On the other hand, there are more and more physicians providing direct HIV care in many of the countries that I visit. Unless we can train more physicians and provide better salaries and conditions to engage in academic medicine-which not only includes patient care but research and teaching-we are not going to solve the problem of leadership. Because government jobs in public hospitals are not particularly well paid, physicians have to moonlight, if you will, in the private sector after hours, which gives them very little time to pursue some of the education and research aspects of academic medicine. My belief is that this is very much related to the medical system in many countries in Asia.

The leadership now is the same you have been seeing for five to ten years, with some exceptions. I don’t see a new generation of doctors coming through the ranks in many of these countries.

Cooper: This is still something of a problem. TREAT Asia Report: Has any progress been made to address the shortage of trained doctors in Asia?ĭr. Having said that, there is much more happening now than even five years ago. Other countries that have injecting drug use epidemics, such as Malaysia, Indonesia, and China, have really been much slower to respond and less successful because of the stigma and illegality associated with injecting drug use.

Similar successes have occurred in Cambodia, with condom use and treatment implementation. Unfortunately, some of that progress has not been as good recently, particularly amongst men who have sex with men in Bangkok and perhaps injecting drug users. Early on, the Thais responded with a 100 percent condom use policy that certainly turned the epidemic around there. Cooper: The responses around the region have been variable but there have been some spectacularly successful programs. TREAT Asia Report: Looking at the national responses to AIDS in Asia, which strategies do you think have been most successful?ĭr. Cooper spoke with the TREAT Asia Report about the successes, failures, and prospects for the future of HIV treatment and prevention in Asia. He has been a stalwart supporter of the TREAT Asia Network since its inception. Cooper has worked with HIV/AIDS doctors and researchers around the world, but perhaps nowhere as closely as in Asia. As head of the National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research at Sydney’s University of New South Wales, Dr. David Cooper will co-chair the International AIDS Society’s Conference on HIV Pathogenesis, Treatment and Prevention in Sydney, Australia, 22-25 July. David Cooper-A Life on the Front Lines of AIDS Research

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