FOUND 627
In 2016, 89% of pregnant women living with HIV in Eastern and Southern Africa received antiretroviral treatment to prevent vertical transmission of HIV. Despite this scale-up, in the same region, an estimated 77,000 children (0-14 years) acquired HIV in 2016. AIDS-related illness remains the leading cause of death for women of reproductive age (15-49 years) globally. With countries now providing lifelong treatment to pregnant women living with…
The primary purpose of this Guidance on Gender Responsive Budgeting (GRB) for the HIV response in Asia and the Pacific is to offer top management, national planners, and civil society organizations a resource on how to integrate gender equality into HIV policy and planning. The note is based on a paper prepared for UN Women on Applying GRB to the HIV Responses: A Case Study of Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand, and serves as a stand-alone…
The Asia-Pacific region has witnessed progress in ending the HIV epidemic, with a decrease in AIDS-related deaths, increased access to treatment, higher domestic financing, and notable improvements in addressing stigma and discrimination. Yet, challenges related to ending the HIV epidemic persist with respect to gender relations and inequalities. An adequate response to the gender dimension of the HIV epidemic requires public policies that…
UN Women's Director of Policy, Purna Sen, speaks with UN Women Policy Specialist Elena Kudravtseva on women living with HIV and AIDS. 
To end the growing HIV epidemic among young women, human rights violations must be addressed. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have the potential to help, but only if political barriers are overcome and a rights-based approach is integrated. We have long known that biomedical interventions alone will not curb the HIV epidemic among young women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa. The history of the global response to HIV is ripe with…
Oral PrEP will reach women who need it if PrEP programs are well-supported and prepared. A collaboration between LVCT Health in Kenya and AVAC, through the USAID-funded OPTIONS Consortium, this video series shows how LVCT Health made changes at the site level and helped women interested in oral PrEP overcome recurring barriers to uptake and adherence.Each film in the series highlights a different theme or challenge that emerged as PrEP rolled…
There is rightly a huge global effort to enable women living with HIV to have long, productive lives through treatment access. To improve women's health and know how to best optimize facilitators and minimize barriers to access and adherence, more needs to be understood about these issues from women's own perspectives. In this study, women's key barriers in accessing HIV treatment was reviewed in three phases through: a literature review, focus…
In February-March of 2016, the charitable organization Positive Women conducted research on women and HIV, which generated information on stigma, discrimination and the values and needs of women living with HIV and AIDS. The researchers intended to explore important aspects of women's lives related to their sexual and reproductive health, gender equality, human rights and gender-based violence, as well as their economic and political…
UNAIDS’ Right to health report makes it clear that states have basic human rights obligations to respect, protect and fulfil the right to health. The report gives voice to the communities most affected by HIV on what the right to health means to them. Wherever the right to health is compromised, HIV spreads. In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, 67% of new HIV infections among young people are among young women and girls aged between 15 and…
This paper reviews the evidence for how the What Works for Women and Girls: Evidence for HIV/AIDS Interventions (hereafter What Works) knowledge translation platform has made a difference in the global AIDS response. With an aim to increase use of evidence in policies and programmes to reach women and girls, the paper asks: What difference has What Works made? Has evidence from it informed the policies and programmes of donors? Has it informed…
The latest update from PEPFAR shares many successes from their Global Results, including their DREAMS program to prevent HIV infection among adolescent girls and young women. The update reported a 25-40% decline in new HIV diagnoses among adolescent girls and young women through the DREAMS program. In the 10 African countries (63 districts) implementing the programs, the majority (65% or 41) of the highest HIV-burden districts achieved a decline…
The ALIV[H]E Framework is a UNAIDS commissioned consortium in partnership with Salamander Trust, ATHENA, AIDS Legal Network, Project Empower, University of Kwazulu-Natal and HEARD. Implementing and research partners for this Framework spanned across Kenya, India, Malawi, South Africa, South Sudan and Zimbabwe. Despite the growing body of evidence linking VAW and HIV, very few programmatic frameworks exist to address this intersection. The ALIV[H…
This study aims to move beyond ‘relative age gaps’ to address how much ‘specific age groups’ contribute to HIV risk in men and women in South Africa. To do so, a population-based cohort study from 2004-2015 in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa was analyzed. The study included women 15-49 years and men 15-55 years. This study found non-linear associations between partner age and risk of HIV infection among men and women. The…
The purpose of this Technical Brief is to assist Global Fund applicants in their efforts to include and expand programs to remove human rights and gender-related barriers to HIV prevention, diagnosis and treatment services. This Brief discusses the barriers these programs help to remove, the various forms the programs take, the need to cost and allocate budget for them, and how to implement them in effective ways and at appropriate scale. It…
In collaboration with UN Women, the ATHENA Network, AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) and Salamander Trust have undertaken a multistage review of the global status of women’s access to antiretroviral therapy (ART). This global review takes place during a turning point in the HIV epidemic where increasing focus is placed on strategic investments in health. This review is informed by a gender-responsive and human rights-based framework…
This report shows significant increases in the number of people receiving treatment for HIV, diagnosis and treatment for tuberculosis (TB) and having an insecticide treated net to prevent malaria. The Global Fund Results Report 2017, with cumulative results through the end of 2016, shows a decline of one-third in the number of people dying from AIDS, TB and malaria in the countries where the Global Fund invests. Yet, young people, in particular…
This study aimed to document spending patterns of young African women receiving cash transfers as part of HIV prevention efforts. Survey data from 1,214 young women in South Africa and qualitative data from 38 participants explored how a cash transfer among young women was spent, provided they attended school. During interviews, young women discussed the significant role of cash transfers for adolescent identity, specifically with regard to…
National Strategic Plans (NSPs) for HIV/AIDS are country planning documents that set priorities for programmes and services, including a set of targets to quantify progress toward national and international goals. The inclusion of sex-disaggregated targets and targets to combat gender inequality is important given the high disease burden among young women and adolescent girls in Sub-Saharan Africa, yet no comprehensive gender-focused analysis of…
This qualitative study examines women's experiences with antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence and retention in Option B+ care among 39 pregnant and lactating women in Bwaila Hospital, Lilongwe, Malawi. Study participants included 14 in care and 25 out of care women, according to facility records. One of the most important factors influencing adherence and retention was the strength of women’s support systems. In contrast to women in-care, most…
This report gives a detailed analysis of progress and challenges towards achieving the 90-90-90 targets. It shows that, for the first time, over of half all people living with HIV have access to HIV-related treatment. In 2016, 19.5 million of the 36.7 million people living with HIV had access to treatment, and AIDS-related deaths have fallen from 1.9 million in 2005 to 1 million in 2016. Provided that scale-up continues, this progress puts the…