Brief

Motherhood is common among female sex workers (FSWs) and many have at least one biological child. People who inject drugs (PWID), men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender people (TG) are also part of families and have at-risk spouses and children in their households. Stigma and discrimination towards key populations (KP) can negatively impact their children’s access to health, education and protection services. Program data from Cameroon, Ethiopia and Tanzania reflect positivity rates of 4-6 per cent when children of FSWs are tested for HIV.  Access to early infant diagnosis (EID), HIV testing and treatment and other critical health, social and economic strengthening interventions for children of KP and their families must be improved as a priority.

This is part of a series of 12 policy briefs by the Child Survival Working Group on scaling up key interventions for children and adolescents living with HIV. Learn more. 

Social Protection and HIV: Research Implications for Policy by UNICEF, the Eastern and Southern Africa Regional Inter-Agency Task Team on Children Affected by AIDS (RIATT-ESA) and the Coalition for Children Affected by AIDS contain the following six briefs:

1: How can Social Protection reduce adolescent HIV-risk?

2: Combination Social Protection improves adolescent ART-adherence

3: Combination Social Protection reduces HIV-risk in adolescents

4: Social Protection: potential for improving HIV outcomes among adolescents

5: Social Protection and the Sustainable Development Goals

6: Combination Social Protection lowers unprotected sex in HIV-positive adolescents

HIV-sensitive Social Protection: With focus on creating linkages between social cash transfer programmes and HIV services describes an intervention aiming to strengthen the linkages between HIV services and national social protection programmes and provides lessons learned from implementing the intervention in four countries. The focus of the programme is on families with children and adolescents, vulnerable to, or affected by HIV and AIDS. The programme, funded by the Government of the Netherlands, is now being implemented in Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe in close collaboration with national, provincial and district level governments.

More women are accessing antiretroviral therapy than men, transferring the benefits of their good health to their families and economies. When young women are empowered and have their rights fulfilled, HIV prevalence falls, there are fewer unintended pregnancies, fewer maternal deaths and fewer dropouts from school and more women join the workforce.

This WHO’s Evidence Brief highlights some of the key points of discussion during the ESA regional consultation on HIV prevention and sexual and reproductive health and rights for Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) held in Windhoek on 1-3 February. The Evidence Brief is now available here.

Developed by the IATT in response to procurement and supply challenges resulting from fragmented demand for paediatric ARVs, and has been developing guidance around the selection of optimal products since 2011, this brief is intended for use by programme managers and policy makers and provides formulary selection and procurement guidance for the optimal paediatric ARV dosage forms needed to provide all WHO recommended 1st and 2nd line regimens while simplifying supply chain and easing administration. The brief includes both the Optimal Paediatric ARV formulary as well as the Limited Use list of those formulations that may be needed in special circumstances. As the Optimal Formulary and Limited Use lists are updated on a regular basis, explanation is provided for updates made since 2013.

UNICEF’s Global HIV Response 2017–2021 Addressing the global HIV epidemic among pregnant women, mothers, children and adolescents

This policy brief provides antiretroviral therapy programme managers, implementing partners, procurement and supply chain managers, and other relevant stakeholders with key points to consider before and during the introduction of the new dosage form of ritonavir-boosted lopinavir (LPV/r) oral pellets.

This document puts forward a framework with new strategic directions for 2016–2021 on voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention as the follow-on to the Joint Strategic Action Framework 2012–2016. The new directions focus on adolescent boys and men, and take into account a range of physical and psychosocial health issues. They highlight the need for innovative approaches to overcome current barriers to services, increase acceptability, and address inequalities in access and coverage. This document will be used to inform, both regionally and globally, an action-oriented and operational framework on VMMC and men’s health, with overlapping benefits for women’s health.