Global

Sixteen years of progress since the International AIDS Conference was last held in Durban. Millions of lives saved. But to end the AIDS epidemic there are new milestones to reach, barriers to break and frontiers to cross.

The Global Plan towards the elimination of new HIV infections among children by 2015 and keeping their mothers alive (Global Plan) has been operational at country level for the past four years. It prioritizes the 22 countries that, in 2009, accounted for 90% of the global number of pregnant women living with HIV who were in need of services to prevent mother-to-child transmission. This report presents country performance in 2014 and is based on country-developed models using Spectrum software (see “A note on measurement” at the end of the document).

The impact of drugs upon the lives of children and adolescents is an issue that has been largely overlooked to date in much of the debate and documentation on drugs. The purpose of this paper is to identify lessons learned, together with key implications for policy and programmes, arising from UNICEF’s experience to date of addressing children, drugs and HIV. The paper also suggests practical steps that could enhance the impact of UNICEF’s work in this area, within the overall frameworks of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UNICEF Strategic Plan 2014-17.

This handbook has been written for practitioners working directly with children and adolescents living with HIV and for policy makers and management to help develop services and protocols. To that end, it includes policy and practice guidance for the development of services, practice models and practical examples. The global experience of HIV offers many shared elements and this handbook reflects these, setting out practical guidance and tools that can be used in different settings.

This report guides countries through the process of collecting and reporting sub-national data on adolescents to inform programme planning and implementation efforts. This guidance has been developed with the specific aim of identifying data gaps for adolescents and informing immediate programme planning needs at the sub-national level.

The life course through childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age affects health, wellbeing and earnings. 

This report discusses how community-facility linkages can be used to support the scale up of lifelong treatment for pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV. It offers a conceptual framework and describes eleven promising practices associated with increased service uptake, adherence or retention along the continuum of care.