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FOUND 627
Young women in sub-Saharan Africa remain at the epicentre of the HIV epidemic, with surveillance data indicating persistent high levels of HIV incidence. In South Africa, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) account for a quarter of all new HIV infections. Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe (DREAMS) is a strategy introduced by the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) aimed at reducing…
Communities of people living with HIV across the world refused to accept the slow pace of progress against HIV. Local peer support groups grew into national and international activist movements, demanding their right to the highest attainable standard of health, and to be treated with dignity and respect.
The purpose of this Technical Brief is to assist Global Fund applicants in their efforts to include and expand concrete and effective programs to remove human rights-related barriers to HIV prevention, diagnosis and treatment services. This brief discusses the barriers to access and uptake of HIV services that these programs help to remove, the investment approach to these programs, the various forms the programs take, the need to cost and…
Increasing and sustaining engagement in HIV care for people living with HIV are critical to both individual therapeutic benefit and epidemic control. Men are less likely to test for HIV compared with women in sub-Saharan African countries, and ultimately have delayed entry to HIV care. Stigma is known to impede such engagement, placing an importance on understanding and addressing stigma to improve HIV testing and care outcomes. This study aimed…
According to the Equal Measures 2030 report, Harnessing the power of data for gender equality, no country has yet achieved full gender equality. The Lancet Series on Gender Equality, Norms, and Health shows that this inequality impacts heavily on global health outcomes, laying out the role of gender norms in perpetuating inequities, and HIV is no exception.
Given the impact of gender inequality on the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls and the health of women and their children, UN Women developed a programming guide “Promoting Gender Equality in Sexual, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health” that provides practical guidance and tools to understand the influence of gender inequality on sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (…
In sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) account for 74% of new HIV infections among people aged 15-24.1 This is roughly 360,000 AGYW a year – about 1,000 AGYW per day. AGYW experience converging social, cultural, economic, and political factors that undermine their sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), which makes them vulnerable to HIV infection. In South Africa alone, about 102,000 new HIV infections occur…
Despite substantial declines in the number of new HIV infections globally, the HIV/AIDS epidemic among females ages 15-24 in select countries remains uncontrolled, with 67 percent of new infections in young people in sub-Saharan Africa occurring in adolescent girls and young women, or an estimated 280,000 new infections annually. HIV prevalence rates among female youth ages 15-24 are consistently higher than among their male peers, with…
Adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) are disproportionately affected by HIV, and can face barriers to access, uptake and use of HIV prevention methods. Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a new, effective, individually-controlled HIV prevention tool that could benefit some AGYW. This study used qualitative, participatory, peer-led methods to explore the knowledge, views and preferences of AGYW about PrEP, HIV prevention, and sexual and…
Despite a recent fall in new infections, South Africa still has the largest HIV epidemic in the world and has not achieved the 50% reduction envisaged in its national strategic plan for 2012-16. Adolescent girls and young women are disproportionately affected by HIV, with prevalence among 20-24 year olds three times higher in women (16%) than in men (5%), and females aged 15-24 years accounting for 37% of new infections. Amid the competing…
The HIV/AIDS community is paying increasing attention to the estimated 1.8 million (uncertainty bounds 1.3 million to 2.4 million) people younger than 15 years living with HIV globally, as was evident by the focus on adolescents at the XXII International AIDS Conference in July, 2018. This attention is welcome and it is crucial to curtailing the HIV epidemic. But while age disaggregation can help elucidate the spread and impacts of the HIV…
Epidemics of HIV and HPV are inherently interconnected, and when they meet in the context of weak health systems, their effects serve to amplify each other. Both HIV and cervical cancer present significant public health threats to women in sub-Saharan Africa. But while the threat of HIV is well documented, and the mass mobilisation of resources to treat HIV, unprecedented, cervical cancer is a relatively new and developing challenge for the…
Since its announcement, Undetectable equals Untransmittable (U=U) has become a call to action to assert that when someone living with HIV has an undetectable viral load they cannot transmit HIV. Additionally, the U=U message is evolving to challenge notions of HIV infectivity, vulnerability and stigma. The science behind the U=U message provides the evidence that we can reduce the anxiety related to the sexual transmission of the HIV virus with…
What Women Want is a global advocacy campaign to improve quality maternal and reproductive healthcare for women and girls and strengthen health systems. Launched on April 11, 2018—International Maternal Health and Rights Day—What Women Want sets out to query one million women and girls worldwide—from capital cities to rural villages—about their top priority for quality maternal and reproductive health services until the end of March 2019.
The sustainable development goals (SDGs) have marked a new era in global development-to strive towards a healthier, fairer, and safer world by 2030. Improving the health and well-being of the world’s people is at the core of the SDGs and attaining universal health coverage is central to those health-related goals. But even in the short time since their endorsement, there are immense and growing challenges to achieving them. The global HIV/AIDS…
Gendered power dynamics within couple relationships can constrain women from achieving positive sexual and reproductive health outcomes. But little is known about relationship power among adolescents, and tools to measure it are rarely validated among adolescents. We tested the Sexual Relationship Power Scale (SRPS) among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) and examined associations with select health outcomes. A 16-item adaptation of the…
This Comment was written by women living with HIV previously involved in a global values and preferences survey on the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) priorities of women living with HIV in response to the Lancet Global Health's article on "Investing in sexual and reproductive health and rights to reach HIV and universal health coverage goals." It builds on key points highlighted in their survey, Building a Safe House on Firm…
Investing in sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls to reach HIV and UHC goals
Huge gaps in access to basic sexual and reproductive health services, pose serious challenges to achieving universal health coverage (UHC) by 2030. These gaps in access are heightened by reduced financing for international development and highlight the importance and urgency of strengthening linkages between HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) programmes. This article highlights three key strategies to address these gaps,…
Ending the AIDS epidemic among children, adolescents and young women requires ambitious targets and a Super-Fast-Track approach. Building on the successes of the Global Plan towards the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive, UNAIDS, the United States President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and partners launched Start Free Stay Free AIDS Free in 2016 to provide a framework for the…
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…