How Myanmar Is Working to Maintain Essential Services for People Living With HIV and Key Populations During the Covid-19 Pandemic.

BACKGROUND: Maintaining essential HIV services has being a Global challenge during the COVID-19 crises. Myanmar has 54 million inhabitants. Neighbor of China, Thailand, India and Bangladesh it was impacted by COVID-19, but came up with a comprehensive and effective response, following WHO recommendations. The HIV Prevalence is 0.58% and it is concentrated among key population. A HIV Contingency Plan was developed to face this challenge. METHODOLOGY: The programme-based cross-sectional descriptive study with analysis of routinely collected data from MoHS data system, between 2019 and 2020 was conducted, comparing first six months of 2019 and 2020. RESULTS: HIV outreach activities and HIV testing were slightly affected after detection of first COVID-19 case, till mid May 2020. After that, outreach activities resumed. Introduction of HIV self-testing was initiated. 72% of more than 21,000 PWID on MMT were receiving take home dose up to 14 days and 60% of ART patients were receiving 6 months ARV dispensing. CONCLUSION: Essential HIV services were maintained.

Protective Factors and Biological Sex Differentiate Profiles of Teen Substance Users in Myanmar.

Background. Reports on worldwide drug use include some information on risk factors, but virtually no information on protective factors, which are an important component of prevention programs. Aims. This study investigated protective factors and biological sex differences associated with patterns of substance use among adolescents in Myanmar, a country in Southeast Asia. Method. Myanmar high school students (N = 1,918; Mage = 15.35, SD = 1.07, range = 14-18; 56% female) completed a version of the Communities That Care survey validated for use in this population. Results. Latent class analysis revealed "Low Users" (38%), "Normative Users" (47%), and "Poly Drug Users" (15%) classes for males, and "Low Users" (80%), "Glue/Over-the-Counter Medication Users" (14%), and "High Users" (6%) classes for females. Univariate analyses indicated that belief in the moral order and positive family attachment differentiated profiles for both males and females; opportunities for prosocial family involvement, prosocial peer behavior, and opportunities to talk with teachers were additionally significant for males only. Logistic regression analysis comparing males in the "Low Users" and "Normative Users" classes indicated that opportunities for prosocial family involvement was protective after accounting for significant demographic and risk factors. In contrast, analyses comparing other classes of males or females found that once significant demographic and risk factors were controlled, protective factors did not discriminate classes. Conclusions. These data suggest that sex-specific prevention and intervention strategies may be more successful than universal approaches, and that attention to both risk and protective factors in prevention programming is warranted.