Preventing HIV/AIDS

Prevention is for Life: Strengthening, Streamlining and Scaling Up Efforts
This brochure briefly describes the scope of the challenge posed by the AIDS epidemic and UNFPA's strategic response to it, highlighting its focus on prevention. The brochure also describes UNFPA's work with vulnerable groups, including young people, and women and girls, as well as its role in building demand for and securing the supply of male and female condoms.

Preventing HIV on Mexico's 'Forgotten Border'
Protecting the health and human rights of vulnerable and marginalized groups is both an end in itself and an essential element of tackling the AIDS epidemic. From a human-rights perspective, UNFPA is committed to assisting those who are most disenfranchised. On a practical level, prevention activities aimed at key affected and at-risk groups can curtail the spread of the disease into the general population, especially in countries where HIV is low and concentrated among certain sub-groups. UNFPA supports a variety of programmes aimed at vulnerable groups, including migrants on the move in Latin America.

Women Displaced by Sierra Leone Civil War Learn to Protect Themselves Against HIV and Reintegrate into Society
War and its aftermath increase the risk of exposure to HV and other sexually transmitted infections. Widespread violence, desperation, displacement and disintegration of families and communities – along with the breakdown of health and education infrastructure and the unavailability of condoms – lead to a rise in coercive or unprotected sex. UNFPA supports a variety of programmes aimed at empowering and protecting especially vulnerable groups, such as women and girls who were traumatized during conflict in Sierra Leone.

Frank Talk about Sensitive Subjects: Youth-Friendly Services in Viet Nam
National HIV infection levels in most countries of Asia are low compared with some other regions. However, the populations of many Asian nations are so large that even low prevalence rates means large numbers of people are living with HIV. The Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia, an umbrella project funded by the European Union, is mobilizing young people and community-based organizations in seven South and South-Eastern Asian countries to tackle HIV prevention and address other reproductive health concerns.

Y-PEER: Empowering Young People to Empower Each Other
Defeating AIDS will require changes in awareness, attitudes and behaviour of young people, who are increasingly affected by the epidemic. And young people themselves can exert a powerful positive influence on their peers, especially if they have training, resources and support behind them. This is the idea behind Y-PEER, a youth education network pioneered by UNFPA that now extends across 39 countries and links over 200 community-based, national and international organizations with a range of tools that help young people communicate more effectively and motivate others to stay alive and healthy.

Zimbabwe: Indigenous Christian Churches Make an About Turn on HIV Prevention
In many places, deeply rooted traditional practices contribute to the spread of HIV and AIDS. UNFPA has learned that changing such practices requires considerable cultural sensitivity and, usually, the commitment of local leaders. As this feature shows, the urgency of the AIDS epidemic has been a catalyst for religious leaders to rethink old ideas with respect to new realities.

Microcredit Project Enables Girls to Start a Trade While Teaching Them HIV Prevention
Reducing gender inequities is part of the package of interventions that is needed to ultimately reverse the AIDS epidemic. This is especially true in sub-Saharan Africa, where young women are disproportionately affected by HIV and AIDS, for social, cultural and biological reasons. Providing access to the skills and capital needed to generate income along with information about reproductive health and HIV prevention has proved to be an empowering combination for women in Chad and elsewhere.

Patricia Chan for UNTV, Christian del Sol, 2006

One billion passengers ride China’s railway each year. Millions are rural migrants away from their families and at risk for HIV infection. Long train rides and waiting passengers provide an opportunity to educate travelers about HIV transmission and prevention. The Ministry of railways with UNFPA has developed a series of communication and education messages for HIV prevention.