MAC AIDS Project Brief on Innovations to Accelerate Access to Treatment and Care for Children and Adolescents Affected by HIV. The MAC AIDS Fund is designed to address unmet needs for HIV testing, treatment and care among children and adolescents in key BRICS countries (Brazil, the CEE/CIS region, India, and South Africa).
Young transgender people’s immediate HIV risk is related primarily to sexual behaviours, especially unprotected anal sex with an HIV positive partner, but structural factors in addition to those already noted make young transgender people especially vulnerable to HIV. Stigma and discrimination against transgender people frequently cause them to be rejected by their families and denied healthcare services, including access to HIV testing, counselling and treatment.
It has long been acknowledged that sex workers – female, male and transgender – are at high risk of HIV exposure, especially in low- and middle-income countries. This is due in part to a high number of sexual partners and working environment which is not conducive to sex workers’ being able to protect their health and the health of their clients, including widespread criminalisation of sex work, violence perpetrated by both state and non-state actors and extreme levels of stigma and discrimination.
This brief offers a concise account of current knowledge respond to the overlapping vulnerabilities of young people concerning the HIV risk and vulnerability of young people who inject drugs or the specific legal challenges and ethical who inject drugs; the barriers and constraints they face concerns in working with children. These vulnerabilities to appropriate services; examples of programmes that require responses that may go beyond the harm-reduction programmes recognized as effective for adults.
This technical brief is one in a series addressing four young key populations. It is intended for policy-makers, donors, service-planners, service-providers and community-led organizations. This brief aims to catalyse and inform discussions about: how best to provide health services, examples of programmes that may work well in addressing their needs and rights, and approaches and considerations for providing services, programmes and support for young men who have sex with men (MSM).