RIATT-ESA to Provide Vital Support to the Global Alliance's Regional Hub for Eastern and Southern Africa

The Regional Inter-Agency Task Team on Children and AIDS in Eastern and Southern Africa (RIATT-ESA) is honored to announce its appointment by UNICEF to support the Global Alliance to End AIDS in Children by 2030 Regional Hub for Eastern and Southern Africa.

RIATT-ESA is excited to embark on this new journey as a key player in the Global Alliance's Regional Hub for Eastern and Southern Africa. The network remains dedicated to its vision of universal access to prevention, treatment, care, and support for children, adolescents and families affected by AIDS in the region, and is poised to make a significant impact in the years to come.

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Position Paper: Children and young women in eastern and southern Africa are key to meeting 2030 HIV targets: time to accelerate action

By Kaymarlin Govender, Patrick Nyamaruze, Richard G Cowden, Yogan Pillay, Linda-Gail Bekker

New HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths among children and adolescent girls and young women (aged 15–24 years) in eastern and southern Africa continue to occur at unacceptably high rates. The COVID-19 pandemic has also severely undermined ongoing initiatives for HIV prevention and treatment, threatening to set the region back further in its efforts to end AIDS by 2030. Major impediments exist to attaining the UNAIDS 2025 targets among children, adolescent girls, young women, young mothers living with HIV, and young female sex workers residing in eastern and southern Africa. Each population has specific but overlapping needs with regard to diagnosis and linkage to and retention in care. Urgent action is needed to intensify and improve programmes for HIV prevention and treatment, including sexual and reproductive health services for adolescent girls and young women, HIV-positive young mothers, and young female sex workers.

Check here for more details: file:///C:/Users/HP/Downloads/1-s2.0-S2352301823000127-main_%20children%20and%20HIV%20targets_Lancet%20HIV.pdf

HIV and AIDS/STI and TB Multisectoral Strategic Plan and Implementation Framework 2015 - 2020

EAC HIV and AIDS Strategic Plan.pdf

This strategic plan lays out the strategic intents for East African Community (EAC) HIV and AIDS program for the period 2015-2020. The plan will set the boundaries within which the EAC will implement its HIV and AIDS, TB and STIs interventions within the spheres of its mandate. The costed plan will further be a tool for resource mobilization as well as being a reference point for addressing HIV and AIDS, TB and STIs issues that are trans-boundary in nature within the region.

Specific Objectives of the strategic plan includes: 
• To reduce new cases of HIV by 60%, TB by 50% and STIs by 50% by 2020 in the EAC region
• To reduce HIV and TB related mortality by 75% by 2020 in the EAC region
• To increase access and utilization of integrated HIV, TB and STI services by 50% in 2020 

Even though all Partner States have generalized HIV epidemics, with some of the highest rates of TB infection and disease burden in the world, there are still higher levels of infection and transmission within certain geographic areas, as well as among some key populations and venerable groups. Although this strategic plan promotes a broad framework for addressing HIV, STIs and TB at a general population level, it also identifies priority populations that should be targeted for specific prevention, care, treatment and support interventions based on the analysis of the EAC epidemic. The risk of HIV, STIs or TB is not equal for all populations. In the context of this strategic plan and for the purpose of regional programming, the priority populations include, but it not limited to:

• Adolescent girls and young women
• Migrant populations and mobile workers.
• Orphans and other vulnerable children and adolescents
• People with disabilities
• Young people in and out of school
• Adolescents living with HIV and AIDS
• Infant and young children

This strategic plan makes provision that these populations will be targeted with different, but specific, interventions during implementation to achieve maximum impact. The EAC in collaboration with partner states will ensure geographical mapping and geographical prioritization of interventions for Key and Vulnerable populations for HIV and TB especially for regional aspects of the response.

A Systematic Review of Health System Barriers and Enablers for Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) for HIV-Infected Pregnant and Postpartum Women

Health Systems Barriers for ART.pdf

Despite global progress in the fight to reduce maternal mortality, HIV-related maternal deaths remain persistently high, particularly in much of Africa. Lifelong antiretroviral therapy (ART) appears to be the most effective way to prevent these deaths, but the rates of three key outcomes—ART initiation, retention in care, and long-term ART adherence—remain low. This systematic review synthesized evidence on health systems factors affecting these outcomes in pregnant and postpartum women living with HIV.

There has been a lack of emphasis on the experiences, needs and vulnerabilities particular to HIV-infected pregnant and postpartum women. Supporting these women to successfully traverse the maternal ART cascade requires carefully designed and targeted interventions throughout the steps. Careful design of integrated service delivery models is of critical importance in this effort. Key knowledge gaps and research priorities were also identified, including definitions and indicators of adherence rates, and the importance of cumulative measures of dropout along the maternal ART cascade