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Opinion Volume 5 Issue 2
Applying E-Health to Promote Youth Global Platform on HIV/AIDS-My Goodwill Message to the Stakeholders Meeting in Abuja
Eloke Onyebuchi
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Public health specialist, Onyibupet Consulting limited (A health sector consulting), Nigeria
Correspondence: Eloke Onyebuchi, Public health specialist/Principal consultant, Onyibupet Consulting limited (A health sector consulting), Abuja, Nigeria, Tel +234 (0) 8166777142
Received: March 13, 2017 | Published: March 14, 2017
Citation: Onyebuchi E (2017) Applying E-Health to Promote Youth Global Platform on HIV/AIDS-My Goodwill Message to the Stakeholders Meeting in Abuja. J Hum Virol Retrovirol 5(2): 00147. DOI: 10.15406/jhvrv.2017.05.00147
Opinion
Personally, I refer e-health as a path towards personalised medicine. E-health is changing the landscape of clinical practice and health care, but the best way to leverage the many promised benefits of emerging e-health technologies is still not clear. Therefore, I will like today’s panel on Innovations in e-health to present emerging changes in technologies and applications that will facilitate clinical decision making, improve quality and efficiency of care, engage individuals in clinical decision making, and empower them to adopt healthy behaviors.
People are now leading changes in the way they manage their health through peer-to-peer support networks such as Youth Global Platform on HIV/AIDS (@YGPOH). Online networks enable patients to share, compare and contrast different diagnoses and treatments with people who have the same conditions who are anywhere in the world. Members of the online community can ask for advice, learn from each other, discuss test results, and compare how different medications, treatments, or combinations of drugs might or might not be working. This sharing of information creates a more informed and empowered society and can lead to a radical reconfiguring of the patient/care team relationship. As health professionals are no longer the only source of information, the relationship becomes more equal and collaborative. Since HIV is more prevalent among adolescents and the young people in our population, the HIV platform -Youth Global Platform on HIV/AIDS (@YGPOH) is a forum for young people, mainly of adolescent age to interact online on ways of adopting healthy sexual behaviors as a rationale to make this age group, the agents of reversing the HIV epidemic.
Every 13 minutes, someone is infected with HIV; every 4 minutes someone dies of AIDS. The reality is very clear. Every minute, a young person, mostly women is newly infected by HIV and at the same time, some are orphaned because of AIDS. Far too many women lack control over their finances and assets, when they lose their bread winners through HIV/AIDS. Therefore, leading to lack of equal access to education among young people and exposes our young women to lose control over their bodies and lives. It is clear, governments and communities in most countries have totally failed to provide a sustained response that enable young people to protect themselves from HIV, unemployment and poverty. This is highly unacceptable, particularly because the world can do much better to give these young people the future they want in this world as empowered young people are critical agents of change in reversing HIV/AIDS epidemic. In the most devastating global health epidemic of our generation, there is no time for judgment. Who are the innocent victims of HIV/AIDS? Who deserves what they get? Who cares? This is a fight that needs you. Check your judgments. Challenge your fears. Break the silence and ignorance. Take action and save lives.
Hence the rationale for this platform because this epidemic is more concentrated among young people and has done more damages to children, young men and women than any other population in this planet. Young people are critical agents of change in the AIDS response and we all have a lot more to do if it is to be a place where young women and men are treated as equal, where they shape their own future and challenge social norms that block opportunities. Having facilitated this forum for five years through our social media tool and practical crowd sourcing of information among youth groups, I see prospects that we can retrieve the opportunities that HIV has taken away from young people including the dignity and rights of those young people living with HIV. But this can only be achieved, if we leverage on the opportunities of e-health to help promote the activities of this platform-@YGPOH-designed to help young people and adolescents enhance universal youth response on HIV/AIDS.
Therefore, it is pertinent to note that e-health will play a very vital role in achieving our objective to end the AIDS epidemic and achieve universal health coverage by 2030.
Acknowledgments
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Conflicts of interest
None.
©2017 Onyebuchi. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and build upon your work non-commercially.