Human immunodeficiency virus and tuberculosis infections and co-infection in limited resource settings: quality of life, costs, challenges, and strategies for improvement

The success of patients’ therapeutic outcomes consists of external and internal patient factors that correlate with one another (i.e., patient-centered, therapy-related, social and economic, healthcare system, and disease factors). The success of chronic treatment, such as HIV and TB, depends mainly on patients’ willingness, spirit, and commitment alongside healthcare professionals working to provide optimal healthcare services to patients. Integrated free-of-charge healthcare services for HIV and TB in high prevalence areas with high disease burden have been well implemented worldwide. However, regardless of the current practice, the health expenditures for HIV and TB diseases remain high. Consequently, there is a need for new approaches to managing therapy from health professionals and the government.
This thesis focuses on evaluating the role of clinical pharmacists in treating patients with HIV and TB in Indonesia. In Part 1, I comprehensively analyzed the gaps in HIV and TB therapy management and extracted points that can be incorporated into the healthcare system based on the need for individualized therapy for HIV and TB patients. In Part 2, I then conducted trials using our proposed strategy based on the results from Part 1. West Java, Indonesia, was the research site for our studies because of its high prevalence rates of HIV and TB cases in Indonesia.