Search

8 March 2018

In honor of International Women's Day, the International Community of Women Living with HIV (ICW) released a new report entitled "Walking in our Shoes: Perspectives of Pregnant and Breastfeeding Women living with HIV on Access and Retention in Care in Malawi, Uganda and Zambia."

This report highlights the key factors that facilitate retention in care for women living with HIV and calls for increased focus on rights…

8 March 2018

On this International Women’s Day, it has never been more urgent to ensure women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights, so that women everywhere have the opportunity to stay healthy and achieve their goals.

The leading causes of death among women of reproductive age worldwide are HIV/AIDS and maternal mortality, with complications from pregnancy and childbirth as major factors. These women are our mothers,…

6 March 2018

Although the overall number of new HIV cases has dropped in New York City, diagnoses among women, particularly Black and Latina women, rose 5% from 2015 to 2016, according to the Department of Health. To respond, New York City's Department of Health has kicked off a public health campaign aimed at increasing the use of HIV prevention medication, or pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), among female patients. 

The…

2 March 2018

In this article, Avert CEO, Sarah Hand, reflects on the wider role of #SheDecides for HIV and global development, one year on from its launch.

The power of SheDecides is its emphasis on gender equality and women's empowerment. It's a movement born out of women recognizing their sexual and reproductive health and rights in the era of the Global Gag Rule. SheDecides also links these rights with the wider Sustainable…

21 February 2018

Accurate information about sex and healthy relationships leads to greater gender equality worldwide, a report by the UN’s world heritage body Unesco found. It also leads to better sexual health, as well as less sexually transmitted infections, HIV and unintended pregnancies. Yet many young people still don’t get the accurate information they need. Technology is one way to bring it to them. The revised international…

25 February 2018

Ukraine has one of the fastest growing HIV epidemics in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, with approximately 240,000 people living with the virus and a prevalence of 0.9 percent in the general adult population. In Ukraine, 35 percent of women living with HIV have experienced violence from a partner or husband since the age of 15, compared to 19 percent of women who do not have HIV, according to a November 2016 survey by…

26 January 2018

Uganda has many women, who are infected with HIV and have had a history of physically violent partners. This has contributed to their life-threatening and life-reducing experiences within their families and with their sexual partners. Also, there is growing violence of child sexual abuse (CSA) that has increased HIV spread. There is a number of evident cases where domestic violence (DV) has contributed to HIV infections…

6 February 2018

Women living with HIV in Switzerland are mainly relying on male condoms for contraception, investigators report in HIV Medicine. The study found that two-thirds of reproductive age women reported using contraception, with three-quarters of these individuals putting their trust in male condoms. Unwanted pregnancies were not uncommon among women using contraception.

“Male condoms remained the most frequently used…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

11 January 2018