New York, Nov 23:The United Nations recently warned that while more people than ever are accessing antiretroviral treatment for HIV, girls aged 15 to 24, transitioning to womanhood, face many HIV-related challenges, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and called for a life-cycle approach to finding solutions for everyone, at all stages of life.
"Young women are facing a triple threat," said Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).
"They are at high risk of HIV infection, have low rates of HIV testing, and have poor adherence to treatment." Launching in Windhoek, Namibia, a report entitled Get on the Fast-Track: the life- cycle approach to HIV, Sidibé and President Hage Geingob underscored that prevention is the key to ending the AIDS epidemic among young women. The cycle of HIV infection needs to be broken. According to the report, launched ahead of World AIDS Day, marked annually on 1 December, recent data from South-Africa shows that young women are acquiring HIV from adult men, while men acquire HIV much later in life, after they transition into adulthood, and continue the cycle of new infections. On a more positive note, the report shows that countries are getting on what UNAIDS refers to as the fast track to ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030, with an additional one million people having accessed treatment from January to June. By June 2016, some 18.2 million people were on life-saving medicines, including 910,000 children - double the number of five years earlier. OneIndia News