Children

UNICEF’s latest Spotlight Report, Knocking on Every Door, showcases Tanzania's Family-Centred Approach, where dedicated community health workers, known as Wakili Tiba, embody compassion and unwavering commitment. They go above and beyond to locate and link children and adolescents to life-saving treatment, breaking barriers and ensuring no child is left behind.

Discover their inspiring journey and transformative impact by downloading the document below. 

UNICEF’s 2024 Global Snapshot, released for World AIDS Day, offers a concise yet critical overview of the global HIV and AIDS landscape, focusing on children, adolescents, and pregnant women. This year’s report highlights key data and insights, emphasizing the urgent need to eliminate vertical transmission of HIV and ensure universal access to testing and treatment for children and adolescents. Ending AIDS by 2030 is not just an achievable goal—it is a moral imperative to uphold the rights and dignity of every child and adolescent.

This year's World AIDS Day theme is "Take the rights path". For this occasion, UNICEF published the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional 2024 Snapshot, featuring a regional overview of HIV trends, including vertical transmission, testing, and treatment for children and adolescents, as well as gender disparities affecting adolescent girls and young women.

This status report shows how far we have come—and how much further we must go—if we hope to meet the global commitments to end AIDS in children. It offers a snapshot of global progress and permits an early assessment of the impact of the Global Alliance’s work. This report highlights the transformative work that is being undertaken in Global Alliance countries to accelerate gains towards ending AIDS in children, underscoring the urgent need to apply good practices, emerging innovations and critical lessons learned to overcome the barriers that slow progress.

For additional information, consult the joint press release and the video created for the report launch at AIDS 2024.

The assessment for HIV/AIDS integration in primary health care in Kazakhstan was undertaken in 2022. The overall objective of the assessment was to use findings and lessons learnt from TB and mental health integration to guide and support integration of HIV/AIDS into primary health care. A mixed methods approach combining both qualitative and quantitative assessment methods was used. Assessment report available in English and Russian.

The purpose of this study is to provide an assessment and analysis of the situation of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWH) in the Republic of Moldova in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, including COVID-19 awareness and concern, socioeconomic status, quality of life, mental health and social support, access to medical care/treatment (including digital methods), and stigma and develop recommendations for key government stakeholders to address the identified challenges and mitigate the negative impacts of COVID-19.

 This study considers available statistics and latest trends, including an analysis of the data before and during the pandemic, as well as quantitative and qualitative data collected in the field. The study also highlights the situation of pregnant women and children of caretakers with HIV or with HIV themselves.

Key findings: The COVID-19 pandemic has had widespread implications on the health and well-being of PLWH in the Republic of Moldova. One-fifth of PLWH in the national survey reported being severely affected by the pandemic and one-third reported being moderately affected. The multifaceted dimensions of PLWH’s vulnerabilities, compounded with restrictions during COVID-19 lockdowns, resulted in job loss, limited access to treatment, and continued stigma.

COVID-19 awareness and concern: 

• PLWH received the bulk of COVID-19-related information from online news sources and TV. Less than half of all respondents felt family doctors were a good source of information.
• Over one-third of PLWH said they were “definitely willing” to get the COVID-19 vaccine. A slightly smaller portion, reported no intention of receiving the vaccine at all.Socioeconomic indicators

Socioeconomic indicators: 

• 1 in 10 PLWH experienced job loss.
• Decrease in income was reported by half of all PLWH. Pandemic-induced income reduction was more frequent among urban dwellers.
• More than half of PLWH expressed concerns regarding financial sustainability and ability to pay daily expenses (utilities, food, drugs).
• Half of households spent savings, borrowed money, and bought cheaper food to cope with economic hardships during the COVID-19 pandemic. 2 in 5 limited their personal food consumption.
• More than half of PLWH reported anxieties tied to not being able to pay utilities and buy medication.
• Out-of-pocket expenses related to HIV care were reported by 56% of PLWH.

Quality of life: 

• Self-reported quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic was very poor to poor among over a quarter of PLWH.
• Self-reported deterioration in health during the COVID-19 pandemic was reported by 17% of PLWH. Deterioration was expressed at a higher rate among the male population.

Access to medical care/treatment: 

• Nearly 1 in 10 respondents had a lack of knowledge regarding existing HIV/AIDS programs offered by healthcare facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore had not accessed them.
• 1 in 10 PLWH reported cancelled medical visits between July 2020 – July 2021. 
• A quarter of PLWH indicated that the frequency of their visits to healthcare facilities had decreased during the COVID-19 pandemic period when compared to pre-pandemic periods. 
• Fear of contracting COVID-19 was the most cited barrier in accessing healthcare facilities, reported by 41% of PLWH. 

Find the recommendations in the report.

As part of the 2gether 4 SRHR joint UN programme, UNICEF ESARO in collaboration with Y+ Global and UNFPA ESARO, developed six key question and answer (Q&A) resource documents on HIV and SRH for adolescents and young people in ESA. The toolkit has been developed to assist country teams in improving knowledge and understanding, driving adolescent and youth engagement and behaviour change,​ and promoting uptake of services in ESA. The content has been developed with adolescents and young people. Part of a broader toolkit, the content is intended for adaptation and use across multiple SBC platforms, including digital approaches scripts for radio shows and peer counselling sessions.

Each Q&A has approximately 10 questions, and links to the other topic areas:

• Healthy relationships
• Staying safe
• Sex and other stuff
• All about HIV
• Living with HIV
• Being a young parent
• Understanding Puberty
• The HPV Vaccine
• Talking with Your Children

Click and watch on how to access and use the toolkit

This document highlights opportunities for both public and private sectors to engage in the global HIV response for infants, children, and adolescents in partnership with UNICEF. Below is also a spotlight on the Global HIV and AIDS Thematic Fund, with financial results from 2023 programming.

UNICEF is a key partner and leader in the AIDS response for children, adolescents, and women. It collaborates with governments and partners worldwide, offering innovation, technical expertise, data and evidence, programme excellence, coordination, and convening power.

UNICEF is 100 per cent voluntarily funded, and is seeking support to deliver ambitious HIV results for children and to ensure the world can reach Sustainable Development Goal Target 3.3, to end the epidemic of HIV by 2030.