Coronavirus: Philippine HIV patients struggle to get life-saving drugs amid lockdown

The group, which already experiences social and economic exclusion, is facing challenges seeking treatment as transport systems are cut

While community groups are banding together to deliver antiretroviral drugs to HIV patients, some fear using the service could expose their condition

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A police officer seen at a checkpoint in Metro Manila, Philippines, April 15, 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 11:30am, 20 Apr 2020Updated: 11:48am, 20 Apr 2020

For six years, Leo*, a 29-year old Filipino man, managed to keep the fact that he had been infected with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) from his family.

But that secret was exposed in the worst possible manner last month, when a traffic officer at a checkpoint in Manila, installed due to the coronavirus lockdown, shouted it out for all the world to hear.

Like 50 million other people in the Philippines, Leo has been affected by the lockdown imposed by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on the central region of Luzon from March 16 to April 30, to curb the transmission of Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

But Leo, who got the illness from a partner, needed to go to a treatment facility on March 18, to get his refill of antiretroviral drugs, or ARV. The ARV helps keep the level of HIV low.

[The traffic officer] told my brother to leave me as he may get infected too, because I have HIV.

Leo (not his real name)

He asked his brother to take him to the facility on his motorbike, as all forms of public transport have been suspended.

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