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This report brings attention to achieving gender equality in the context of women, girls, and the HIV response. This six-month consultation in 2016 with adolescent women and young girls found that #WhatWomenWant is: collaboration and joint action by all to invest in women's HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), to be leaders and articulate the priorities of women and girls in all their diversity, and to speak to the new…

23 March 2017

A counsellor at the local AIDS Secretariat [in Antigua and Barbuda] said that its records have shown a reverse trend in the transmission of the HIV virus, as the rate of infection among females has increased. Oswald Hannays said the discovery is worthy of note because, “where in the early [stages] you had perhaps five to six males for every female that were infected, we now have an almost even one to one ratio.” The…

24 March 2017

A new meta-analysis has identified several strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) that may warrant special attention for women infected with HIV. Immunodeficiency associated with HIV infection is believed to adversely affect the health of women who also have HPV. Not only are women with HIV believed to have an increased risk of acquiring an HPV infection, the risk of developing cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (also…

7 March 2017

There are an estimated 101,000 people living with HIV in the UK, 31% of whom are women. Yet women living with HIV are frequently invisible, their specific needs, experiences and challenges unrecognised, and their voices unheard. The public narrative around HIV often centres on gay men, and women are left behind. This creates the experience of being a ‘minority within a minority’, a phrase I’ve heard frequently during my PhD…

31 March 2017

Maurine Murenga is a wife and mother from Kenya who is changing the world for the better. Murenga has openly lived with HIV since 2002. Because of her experience with the disease, she wanted to help young women and adolescent girls in her country who also have the disease. The Lean on Me foundation that she created in 2008 now helps 7,290 women and teen girls in Kenya.

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This study aimed to better understand how couples involvement with SASA!, a violence against women and HIV-related community mobilisation intervention, influenced processes of change in relationships. Qualitative data were collected from each partner in separate interviews. Findings suggested that SASA! engagement contributed to degrees of change at the individual and relationship levels. SASA! activities, such as reflection around healthy…

This doctoral research project explores the experiences of women growing older with HIV in London, United Kingdom. It has a specific focus on women and the gendered experiences of ageing with HIV, in terms of community, social support, and health care needs. The research uses a feminist methodology along with participatory and narrative methods. 

Persistent gender inequalities and human rights violations continue to drive the HIV epidemic in the ASEAN region. Women living with HIV in Asia face certain issues specific to them. HIV exacerbates poverty and women living with HIV are more likely than men living with HIV to be widowed, raise their children alone, and less likely to have income-generating capacity. These women also often miss out on crucial health education information…

This manual provides a conceptual framework and practical tools for government agencies, NGOs and inter-institutional networks to develop integrated HIV and Violence against Women (VAW) programmes and services that are context-specific. It includes frameworks and various tools for stakeholders to use. 

The Spanish version of this manual can be found here.…

This compilation of articles aspires to advance the inter-sectoral dialogue on the integration of policies, programs and projects on HIV and Violence against Women (VAW) at the local, national, and regional levels. Section I presents three articles, addressing different aspects of the conceptual framework of the intersections between HIV and VAW. Section II touches on the conditions and needs of specific population groups. Lastly, …

HIV/AIDS requires a gender-specific response. This manual has been prepared in response to this need and aims to help trainers enhance their understanding about the gender dimensions of HIV/AIDS. This manual shows that neither AIDS nor gender disparities are unbeatable. It draws on more than a decade’s experience from the field, building on the lessons learned and analysing and synthesising them within the conceptual framework of gender…

7 March 2017

African women have made significant progress including higher female participation in many legislatures than in Britain and the United States -- but women on the continent also face “daunting” challenges in high rates of sexual violence, maternal mortality and HIV infections, said a report released Tuesday. 

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27 March 2017

Ana Luisa Neves (final year PhD student) has won the 2nd prize in Imperial College’s flagship women entrepreneurship programme Althea-Imperial for her prototype finger prick test that brings prenatal care to pregnant women living in isolated areas. Ana’s team which included Andrea Rodriguez-Martinez (PhD student with CSM) pitched the idea for a single device to measure four health indicators for pregnant women,…

21 March 2017

A recent review of evidence on hormonal contraceptives and the risk of HIV acquisition motivated the World Health Organization to change its safety rating of progestogen-only injectables. It remains to be seen what that change will mean, if anything, for conversations between family planning providers and patients.

9 March 2017

Before the gold standard in HIV treatment—called HAART, for “highly active antiretroviral therapy”—came along in the mid-90s, untreated people could expect to live about 10 years after they were infected by HIV. HAART, a combination of several HIV drugs, transformed HIV from a death sentence to a chronic, survivable condition, prolonging life by several decades. Within two years of becoming available, it lowered HIV…

13 March 2017

After a second wave of intensive household testing, a large study of the 'test and treat' strategy in Zambia is diagnosing more people with HIV, getting more people onto treatment and reducing the time between diagnosis and starting treatment, findings from the PopART study presented last month at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI 2017) show.

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19 February 2017

For the last year, Brandi Cooper has taken a once-a-day pill to help protect herself from HIV. It's simple and proven effective, and the Philadelphia woman has enthusiastically shared her find with perhaps 10 other women. Most had never heard of it; only one has taken her suggestion. That, in a nutshell, is the problem facing PrEP for women. 

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This publication provides a framework on women's rights, in the context of Africa. It goes on to conceptualize rights on equality between women and men, gender, intersectionality and multiple forms of discrimination, and more. The Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol) is positioned in the current context, including HIV in the Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights…

27 March 2017

As a part of her two-week tour across the United States, Kenyan women’s health and global fund advocate Maurine Murenga lectured about global issues surrounding HIV/AIDS at the University of Iowa on March 24. Murenga was diagnosed with with HIV during her first pregnancy in the early 2000s. She aims to dissuade stigmas around the disease, and promote treatment for women and children. 

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27 March 2017

Patience Eshun, a widowed grandmother from Ghana who lost her daughter last year to HIV, knows how destructive HIV-related discrimination can be. “My daughter refused to go hospital to receive medicines. My daughter died because of the fear of stigmatization and discrimination,” she said.

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