9 February 2018
By Linda-Gail Bekker, President of the International AIDS Society
Although women remain under-represented in many science fields, the history of HIV cannot be truly told without focusing on the critical contributions of women. I have worked as a physician scientist in this field with a particular focus on addressing the needs of poor and vulnerable communities in sub-Saharan Africa for the past 25 years. Women’s…
29 January 2018
Renewed campaigns to combat HIV and AIDS in Africa were the major highlights when the Organization of African First Ladies against HIV/AIDS (OAFLA) 20th Ordinary General Assembly closed in Addis Ababa Monday, 29 January. At the end of the three-day OAFLA meeting that brought together First Ladies from 16 countries, the members drew a six-point agenda aimed at driving a re-energized campaign to campaign HIV and AIDS across…
25 January 2018
The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and partners pledged support for HER – HIV Epidemic Response – an initiative to build private sector support for programs that address HIV in 13 African countries where adolescent girls and young women face disproportionate risk.
Nearly 7,000 young women and girls are infected with HIV every week, concentrated in East and Southern Africa. At the same time, the…
25 January 2018
The majority of women living with HIV diagnosed with gynaecological cancer do not receive treatment recommended by cancer guidelines, according to research conducted in the United States and published in AIDS Journal. Women whose care did not match guideline standards had poorer survival compared to women who received the recommended care. Toxicity and patient factors were the main reasons why women did not receive…
25 January 2018
New figures reveal that less than half (46.3%) of all adolescent girls and young women (15-24 years) across seven East and Southern African countries are aware of their HIV status, meaning far fewer young women in the region are accessing effective HIV treatment to save their lives.
Just 45% of all young women living with HIV in the region are virally suppressed, according to samples collected as part of the…
25 January 2018
A non-governmental organization has embarked on a programme of re-enrolling teenage girls in the sub-county of Ugenya to school as a way of reducing their vulnerability to HIV infection. The Girl Child Network works with the DREAMS Innovation Challenge programme, which targets girls between 15-24 years. According to the DREAMS project coordinator, Hadley Muchela, this is an HIV intervention strategy that uses education to…
24 January 2018
First Lady of Zimbabwe, Auxillia Mnangagwa, recently met with UNAIDS country director Mr. Girmay Haile at Zimbabwe House and pledged to play a national and international advocacy role in the fight against HIV and AIDS. In this meeting, Mr. Haile briefed the First Lady on upcoming events of the Organisation of African First Ladies against HIV and AIDS (OAFLA) which engages First Ladies for high level advocacy on HIV,…
18 January 2018
Experts have emphasised the importance of integrating gender-based issues in HIV response programmes in Vietnam in order to facilitate the country’s commitments to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 and addressing gender inequalities.
Participants at a Hanoi seminar this morning argued that Vietnam has committed to eliminating AIDS by 2030 and has demonstrated its political leadership and commitments to participate in…
1 December 2017
A lot has changed since the first World AIDS Day, in 1988, when people were still calling the disease "gay cancer" and doctors were scrambling to find a cure. Today, an HIV diagnosis isn't a death sentence, and we know that HIV and AIDS don't affect only gay men. In fact, in the last few years, a lot of HIV and AIDS prevention has revolved around Sub-Saharan Africa and the rest of the developing world, where the pandemic is…
16 January 2018
According to Augustine Odhiambo, an HIV expert, one of the reasons why Kenya is yet to achieve zero infections despite all the resources directed towards the war against the virus is ignorance from sections of the populations who still don’t believe in the existence of the HIV virus. “As of how and why some sections of the population don’t believe in the existence of the HIV virus is still a conundrum to even people like me…
11 January 2018
16 January 2018
Africa has the highest prevalence of communicable diseases in the world – both in terms of mortality (death) and morbidity (illness). This phenomenon has consequences for the health of both women and men, and increased gender mainstreaming in health programmes can help tailor solutions.
A 2016 Institute for Security Studies paper used the International Futures (IFs) forecasting system to explore health trends in…
19 December 2017
On December 17, Grand Challenges Canada announced 18 projects extending innovative forms of health-related lifelines to reach women and girls across the world. The projects embrace a range of creative products and services to advance gender equality, promote human dignity and empower women and girls. Two projects receiving large investments involve innovative approaches to improving menstrual, sexual and reproductive…
18 December 2017
Kenya is among seven African countries chosen to carry out large-scale trials for an injectable HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for women without HIV. The clinical trials of the new, long-acting injectable drug known as cabotegravir (CAB) will be conducted among 3,200 HIV-uninfected, sexually active women in Uganda, Botswana, Malawi, Swaziland, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Kenya. The trial is meant to examine the safety…
12 December 2017
Evidence clearly shows the links between gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV – both as cause and consequences of women and girls' vulnerability to HIV. In some areas, women who were physically or sexually abused by an intimate partner are up to twice more likely to get HIV. Young women and adolescent girls represent 60% of newly infected worldwide and 22% in West Africa have increased vulnerability. Benin is no exception.…
6 December 2017
This letter comes from a group of young African women and reflects their HIV prevention research priorities. It was submitted to the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) Division of AIDS (DAIDS) during the open-comment period concerning the structure and agenda for its next funding cycle (2021-2027).
"Dear Dr. Carl Dieffenbach,
We are eight young women from South Africa, Uganda and Zimbabwe who were involved…
8 December 2017
The nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) announced today that it has received a DKK 20 million (USD 3.2 million) award over four years from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs to advance innovative HIV and multipurpose prevention products designed to empower women with self-initiated tools they could use to protect their sexual and reproductive health. The grant will help support IPM’s regulatory…
1 December 2017
Shedding light on the activism of women living with the viruses, the film began to take shape in the early 2000s while Harriet Hirshorn, the movie's producer and director, was living in France. She worked with a researcher doing a feasibility study on the economic impact of making HIV/AIDS treatment…
1 December 2017
The International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) joins our members, partners, policy makers and stakeholders all over the world in celebration of World AIDS Day 2017.
This World AIDS Day, ICW is proud to share our new Joint Policy Brief: HIV Prevention that works…
1 December 2017
Every four minutes, three young women become infected with HIV (UNAIDS Right to Health report, 2017). They are…