Reducing HIV and AIDS in Adolescents: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

Adolescents are critical to efforts to end the AIDS epidemic. Few national AIDS strategies explicitly program for children in their second decade of life. Adolescents (aged 10-19 years) are therefore largely invisible in global, regional, and country HIV and AIDS reports making it difficult to assess progress in this population. We have unprecedented knowledge to guide investment towards greater impact on HIV prevention, treatment, and care in adolescents, but it has not been applied to reach those most vulnerable and optimize efficiency and scale. The cost of this is increasing AIDS-related deaths and largely unchanged levels of new HIV infections in adolescents. An AIDS-free generation will remain out of reach if the global community does not prioritize adolescents. National AIDS responses must be accountable to adolescents, invest in strengthening and monitoring protective and supportive laws and policies and access for adolescents to high impact HIV interventions.

Seeking wider access to HIV testing for adolescents in sub-Saharan Africa

“…Between 2005 and 2012, AIDS-related deaths fell by 30% among the global people living with HIV (PLHIV) population (1); however mortality rose by 50% among adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) (1,2). Globally, in 2013, an estimated 120,000 AIDS-related deaths occurred among adolescents aged 10-19 y, with 110,000 (nearly 92%) of these deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa (3).…”

Adolescent HIV Care and Treatment in Uganda: Care Models, Best Practices and Innovations to Improve Services

“…This was far below the adults and children who are at 75% and 41% respectively according to the Annual Health Sector Performance Report 2012/2013 [7]. This finding of low access to HIV services as well as previous research which indicated that adolescents were the only group where HIV related mortality was going up [8] led to increased focus on this age group.…”

Girlhood and the Politics of Place

“…In South Africa, 5.1 million people are living with HIV or AIDS (UN-AIDS 2012); an estimated 2.1 million are adolescents (between the ages of ten and nineteen years), and adolescent women make up 60 percent of this cohort (Kasedde et al 2013). There is a critical need to address the reasons why women under the age of twenty in South African contexts are eight times more likely than their male counterparts to contract HIV (Abdool Karim 2013).…”

“…There is a critical need to address the reasons why women under the age of twenty in South African contexts are eight times more likely than their male counterparts to contract HIV (Abdool Karim 2013). Factors that contribute to girls' increased risk are gender-based violence and sexual coercion; poverty; a tendency for young women to have older, sexually experienced male partners; the gendered inequality of sexual relationships, which makes it diffi cult for women to choose safer sex practices; the susceptibility of younger female bodies to HIV infection; and low risk perception (Mavedzenge et al 2011;Kasedde et al 2013). Statistical reports illustrating the extent of the HIV epidemic among young South Africans are important.…”