IntroductionThe international community's commitment to halve by 2015 the HIV transmission among people who inject drugs has not only been largely missed, instead new HIV infections have increased by 30%. Moreover, drug injection remains one of the drivers of new HIV infections due to punitive responses and lack of harm reduction resourcing. In the midst of this situation, adolescents are a forgotten component of the global response to illegal drugs and their link with HIV infection. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) present an opportunity to achieve the global objective of ending AIDS among adolescents who use drugs, by addressing the structural vulnerabilities they face be they economic, social, criminal, health‐related or environmental.DiscussionThe implementation of the SDGs presents an opportunity to address the horizontal nature of drug policy and to efficiently address the drugs‐adolescents‐HIV risk nexus. Adolescent‐focused drug policies are linked to goals 1, 3, 4, 10, 16 and 17. Goals 3 and 16 are the most relevant; the targets of the latter link to the criminalization of drug use and punitive policy environments and their impact on adolescents' health and HIV transmission risks. Moreover, it presents an opportunity to include adolescent needs that are missing in the three drug control conventions (1961, 1971 and 1988), and link them with the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989). Finally, the six principles to deliver on sustainable development are also an opportunity to divert adolescents who use drugs away from criminalization and punitive environments in which their vulnerability to HIV is greater.ConclusionsAddressing HIV among adolescents who use drugs is an extremely complex policy issue depending on different sets of binding and non‐binding commitments, interventions and stakeholders. The complexity requires a horizontal response provided by the SDGs framework, starting with the collection of disaggregated data on this specific subgroup. Ending AIDS among adolescents who use drugs requires the implementation of national drugs and HIV plans based on the multi‐sectoral approach and the transformative nature of the SDGs, to provide a comprehensive response to the epidemic among this key affected subgroup.
Morocco's health system remains weak in spite of the improvement of other development indicators in the last ten years. Health remains one of the major challenges to lower the social disparities that are the priority for the authorities. Despite the goodwill of all stakeholders, significant reforms implemented respond only partially to the needs of the population. Morocco established several public insurance schemes, of which one focuses on the poorest, to achieve financial-risk protection for its population. Nevertheless, achieving universal health coverage through one of its dimensions is not sufficient, and all the effort being concentrated in one area has shown the deterioration of equity in access to and quality of health services. Moreover, the insurance schemes did not reach their objectives of protecting a majority of Moroccans from financial hardship.
ORCID 0000-0002-1015-9379) "There's no book on it because we are still making it up as we go along -if this was hip hop we haven't even got to the Sugarhill Gang yet."
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