Unicef And UNAIDS Go ‘All In’ To End The Aids Epidemic Among Adolescents

By: Minggu Simon Lhasa BANGKOK, Feb 17 (Bernama) -- The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV and AIDS (UNAIDS), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and partners have launched ‘All In’, to end the AIDS epidemic among adolescents. All In is a new platform for action to drive better results for adolescents by encouraging strategic changes in policy and engaging more young people in the effort, they said in a statement. Other partners include the United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), World Health Organisation, U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the MTV Staying Alive Foundation and youth movements represented by PACT and Y. “Children and young people should be the first to benefit from the progress we have made in ending the epidemic, not the last,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. AIDS has become the second leading cause of death among adolescents globally, said UNICEF and UNAIDS. "Just one in four children and adolescents under the age of 15 have access to life-saving antiretroviral treatment. Deaths are declining in all age groups, except among 10–19 year olds," they said. New HIV infections among adolescents are not declining as quickly as among other age groups. Adolescent girls are most affected. In South Africa, for example, more than 860 girls became infected with HIV every week in 2013, compared to 170 boys. AIDS among the young is also a pressing issue in East Asia and the Pacific. UNICEF and UNAIDS said Thailand, for example, is facing a new rise in HIV and STI cases, especially among young people, with 70 per cent of all sexually transmitted infection (STI) cases occurring in the 15-24 age group, suggesting that safer sex messages are not reaching this age group. Despite a gradual drop in overall HIV prevalence in Thailand, new data released in 2014 showed infections have risen among groups of at-risk young people, namely those involved in sex work, those injecting drugs, and young men having unprotected sex with men, it said. UNICEF Thailand used this data to talk to the government about reducing the age of consent for HIV tests to below 18, providing training for health workers on working with at-risk young people, and expanding HIV education in schools. In December 2014, the official guidance on HIV tests was changed in line with our recommendation. Working with partners, UNICEF East Asia and Pacific has produced guidance for researchers on how to obtain data about at-risk adolescents and young people, while guaranteeing their anonymity. The regional office is now working on a guidebook to help youth organisations use and understand data, in the style of a comic book. ‘All In’ focuses on four key action areas: engaging, mobilizing and empowering adolescents as leaders and actors of social change; improving data collection to better inform programming; encouraging innovative approaches to reach adolescents with essential HIV services adapted to their needs; and placing adolescent HIV firmly on political agendas to spur concrete action and mobilize resources. Most of the 2.1 million adolescents living with HIV in 2013 became infected at least 10 years ago, when their mothers were pregnant, during delivery or in the first months of life – at a time when antiretroviral medicines that can greatly reduce the possibility of HIV transmission were not available. Many were never diagnosed, lost to follow-up or fell out of treatment and care programmes. The next five years are crucial with UNAIDS setting a new Fast-Track Targets to be achieved by 2020 for adolescents that include reducing new HIV infections by at least 75 per cent, reducing AIDS-related deaths by 65 per cent and achieving zero discrimination. Achieving the targets would put the world on track towards ending adolescent AIDS by 2030 and ending the global AIDS epidemic as a public health threat. -- BERNAMA