UNAIDS Asia-Pacific 
The winter of 2019/2020 in Wuhan, China, will remain with Xiao Yang for the rest of his life. During 60 days working in a makeshift hospital as an emergency nurse, he saw life and death, happiness and sorrow, tears and laughter.
Mr Xiao volunteered to go to Wuhan from his home town, Beijing, to save lives. “Saving life is the responsibility of every medical worker,” he said. This commitment is deeply rooted in his family—17 years ago, his father worked as a doctor on the frontline of the SARS epidemic.
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Press Release
New Delhi, India, 23 April 2020 — In India, the UNAIDS Country Office has partnered with Reckitt Benckiser (RB) by joining forces to distribute over a million bars of soap to people living with HIV and key populations.
The soaps are being distributed through networks of people living with HIV, civil society organizations and community-based organizations as part of the national response to the COVID-19 epidemic. They have reached people in several states and union territories, including Delhi, Goa, Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh. The soaps are being delivered to communities through outreach workers, who are also dispensing antiretroviral medicines and other HIV commodities, sometimes direct to the doorsteps of people who need them. Read More
Although difficult for everyone, the COVID-19 pandemic has had severe impacts on key populations, many of whom are experiencing economic hardship and anxiety about their health and safety.
Rito Hermawan (also known as Wawan), the Advocacy Coordinator of the Network of Sex Workers of Indonesia (OPSI), explained that the places that sex workers work in Indonesia have been closed down. Since, for their own safety, sex workers are avoiding working on the streets, many have been left without an income, unable to make ends meet.
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When the Vietnamese Government introduced social distancing mid-March 2020 to respond to COVID-19, Binh Nam (not his real name), already on distance learning from his college since February, lost his part-time job at a small company. He decided to leave Ho Chi Minh City, which had a cluster of confirmed COVID-19 cases, to settle back in his home town, about 300 kilometres away.
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Sitting near her broken window, Ashee Malik (not her real name), a transgender woman who lives in Punjab Province, Pakistan, is counting her earnings, realizing that her income has fallen sharply. Her only source of money is dancing, begging and entertaining her clients, but since the lockdown imposed on 20 March to stop COVID-19, she hasn’t been able to leave her home. Her bright clothes are in her wardrobe, as is her makeup kit, laying unused for weeks. “We are concerned about our well-being, as we do not have enough resources to support ourselves and our families,” she said.
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The COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown imposed by the Government of the Philippines to curb the spread of the disease are impacting the lives of people living with HIV across the country, creating a serious challenge to accessing life-saving antiretroviral therapy. To help address those challenges, civil society organizations have come together to support people living with HIV to access treatment.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted people’s lives around the world, including those of many marginalized people, who suddenly face additional burdens and vulnerabilities.
Many areas in Indonesia, which as of 6 April had 2491 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 209 deaths, have put in place measures, such as physical distancing, to curb the spread of COVID-19. While effective in responding to the disease, many people have been impacted by the effects of physical distancing on the economy.
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On the day of China’s Lantern Festival, 8 February, Shen Ming was making sweet dumplings, the traditional festival delicacy, at his home in Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province. From time to time, he would raise his head to watch the local news on the television to get the latest on the COVID-19 outbreak.
His paid particular attention to the new traffic restriction measures. Unlike most people in the city, who stayed indoors all day because of the lockdown, Shen Ming needed to go out almost every day—he is a volunteer who is driving people living with HIV to pick up their medicines from hospitals during the outbreak.
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UNAIDS Asia-Pacific 