Improved Combination HIV Prevention Coverage Reduces New Infections In girls and young women in Zimbabwe

By Staff Reporter

Zimbabwe is among nine high-prevalence locations in Sub-Saharan Africa to record a reduction in new HIV infections between 2010 and 2022 owing to increased coverage of combination prevention methods according to findings from a 2023 Global HIV Prevention report

UNAIDS defines combination HIV prevention as rights-, evidence-, and community-based programs that promote a combination of biomedical, behavioural, and structural interventions designed to meet the HIV prevention needs of specific people and communities. Its goal is to reduce the number of new infections through activities with a greater sustained impact.

The study dubbed HIV Prevention from Crisis to Opportunity was conducted by the Global HIV Prevention Coalition (GPC). According to the findings, fewer adolescent girls and young women (aged 15–24 years) were acquiring HIV in the GPC-focused countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

The greatest progress has been in Botswana, Cameroon, Eswatini, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Rwanda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women decreased by at least 65% between 2010 and 2022,said the Report.

These trends are due primarily to increasing coverage of combination prevention programmes, with antiretroviral- based prevention playing a major role alongside targeted primary prevention programmes. Changes in sexual behaviour may also have contributed, particularly during earlier stages of the epidemic.

“It is important to note that HIV incidence among adolescent girls and young women varies considerably between locations, even in eastern and southern Africa (where incidence tends to be highest). Across sub-Saharan Africa, there is a greater than 1000-fold difference in HIV incidence between locations with the lowest and the highest incidence.

According to the report, overall, HIV incidence among adolescent girls and young women is low to moderately high in large parts of eastern and southern Africa; high in parts of southern Africa among those with non-regular partners; and extremely high across much of the latter sub-region among women aged 18–25 years who sell or trade sex.

The report further stated that prevention programmes must reach the girls and women who are at high risk of acquiring HIV infection. In 2022, the number of locations with high HIV incidence (above 1 per 100 person-years) declined further. In combination with programme expansion and adjustments in geographical coverage made over recent years, this meant that 61% of sub-national areas with high HIV incidence had a dedicated programme for adolescent girls and young women (mostly either a DREAMS programme14 supported by PEPFAR, or a Global Fund-supported initiative). In locations with moderately high HIV incidence  (between 0.3 and 0.99 per 100 person-years) only 36% had a dedicated programme, according to the Coalition scorecards, which also draw on Global Fund and PEPFAR reporting.

However, locations with moderately high incidence are now much more numerous in southern and eastern Africa and in parts of western and central Africa––and they contribute large absolute numbers of new HIV infections among girls and women.

 

 

 

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