HIV/AIDS

"We must act now to give young persons the methods to prevent HIV/AIDS." – Dr. Nafis Sadik, UNFPA Executive Director. 

Urgent action is needed to slow the spread of HIV/AIDS. Some 8,000 young people become infected each day. Since the epidemic began in the 1970s, AIDS has claimed the lives of some 19 million people and torn apart the lives of many millions more. According to estimates from UNAIDS and WHO, 33.0 million adults and 1.3 million children were living with HIV at the end of 1999. Over 13 million children had lost one or both of their parents to the disease. 

Over 95 per cent of people living with HIV are in developing countries, and about half of all HIV infections occur in young people under 25. In the African countries hardest hit by the pandemic, young women are much more likely to be infected than young men. In western Kenya, for example, one female in four between the ages of 15 and 19 is living with HIV as compared to one in 25 males in the same age group. 

Lack of access to appropriate information and services coupled with a reluctance to address sensitive issues such as adolescent sexuality seriously hamper the fight against HIV/AIDS. At the ICPD+5 meeting, delegates set a 2005 deadline for governments to ensure that 90 per cent of 15- to 24-year-olds have access to information and services to help them avoid HIV infection, including condoms, voluntary testing, counselling and follow-up. 

To date, the only effective preventive measure has been education on how to stop transmission of the virus. There is good evidence that HIV infection rates are stabilizing or decreasing in places where focused and sustained prevention programmes have brought about significantly safer behaviour. Surveillance testing in urban areas in Uganda over the past five years reveals a 40 per cent drop in HIV infection among pregnant women. This decline is particularly striking in young women and is associated with delayed first sexual intercourse, increased condom use and fewer sexual partners. Uganda's anti-AIDS campaign features open and explicit discussions about sex, roadside billboards that promote safe sex, and NGOs that are helping to educate people about the disease. 

The first signs of an HIV turnaround are also being seen among young people in northern areas of the United Republic of Tanzania. Where there are active prevention programmes, prevalence in young women fell by 60 per cent over a period of six years. 

Thailand has presented the most comprehensive evidence yet from the developing world that prevention works. The country's well-established prevention efforts are yielding decreases in HIV prevalence among both pregnant women and young male soldiers. Annual representative surveys of young men show both substantial reductions in risk behaviour and decreases in HIV infection levels. 

Information and education on HIV prevention is especially necessary for young people who might otherwise begin sexual activity with little thought of the risks involved. During 1999, UNFPA supported a wide range of HIV prevention activities for youth and adolescents in 128 countries. Informational and awareness-raising activities included theatre performances in Jordan, Malawi, Moldova and Rwanda; youth camps in Jordan, Latvia, Romania and the Syrian Arab Republic; parent education in Estonia, Poland and Uganda; discussion groups in Bhutan and South Africa; clubs in Guinea and Haiti; student competitions in Mali and Myanmar; church activities in Papua New Guinea; magazine articles in Honduras; sports activities in Niger; and film screenings in South Africa and Togo. 

In the Islamic Republic of Iran, where prevalence of HIV/AIDS is still relatively low, prevention of its spread has become an area of increasing concern. In collaboration with the Ministry of Education, UNFPA helped distribute 700,000 posters on HIV/AIDS prevention to schools nationwide along with 200,000 pamphlets for teachers in primary, junior and high schools. In Azerbaijan in 1999, UNFPA supported a family life education curriculum that included a component on HIV prevention. The curriculum was tested in eight pilot schools. 

In the Philippines, a UNFPA-funded project of the Remedios AIDS Foundation, a local NGO, is managing a Youth Zone in a shopping mall that serves as a venue for small group discussions on HIV/AIDS and other reproductive health topics, face-to-face counselling, and access to an Internet chat programme. The Youth Zone has demonstrated the usefulness of the Internet as an alternative form of counselling. To complement the Youth Zone's activities, a health clinic was set up in 1999 to provide reproductive health services to adolescents. 

In Botswana, a UNFPA-funded programme known as PACT (the Peer Approach to Counselling by Teens) has reached 7,600 students in 11 schools, and in 1999 it was expanded to two new towns in the northern part of the country. The project trains secondary students as counsellors and role models on reproductive and sexual health questions, including HIV/AIDS. In South Africa, where HIV infection is spreading rapidly, the Fund has supported the use of peer educators for HIV prevention counselling and condom distribution. A special feature of one of the youth clinics is the inclusion of community and tribal leaders who help legitimize its activities among parents and community members. 

On World AIDS Day, 1 December 1999, UNFPA, along with other United Nations agencies and an international NGO, helped sponsor a youth rock concert in Moscow to raise AIDS awareness. 

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