UNICEF HIV and AIDS

laughingsquid: Designer Rethinks Boring Condom Packaging with...

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 13:16:06 -0400

Designer Rethinks Boring Condom Packaging with Compelling Artwork

An early response to the Gates Foundation’s call for a “next-generation condom.” Sometimes a bit of cheekiness helps when you’re out to change sexual behavior and prevent new HIV infections.

unicef: UNITE FOR CHILDREN - UNITE AGAINST AIDS In Swaziland,...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:59:43 -0400

unicef:

UNITE FOR CHILDREN - UNITE AGAINST AIDS

In Swaziland, a national push for an HIV-free generation
On March 22, the Government of Swaziland launched a framework to mount the final push toward achieving the goal of eliminating new HIV infections among children and improving the health of women within the next two years.

Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence in the world. In 2010, an estimated 41 per cent of pregnant women in the country were infected with HIV.

Watch as we report on programmes in Swaziland that are helping HIV-positive parents lead healthy lives and have HIV-free children.

You can read more here

laughingsquid: The Gates Foundation Will Fund a ‘Next...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:40:10 -0400

laughingsquid:

The Gates Foundation Will Fund a ‘Next Generation Condom’

The UN’s Interagency Task Team (IATT) on the Prevention...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 18:00:37 -0400

The UN’s Interagency Task Team (IATT) on the Prevention and Treatment of HIV Infection in Pregnant Women, Mothers and Children this week released its toolkit for countries shifting to Option B+ for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT).

Option B+ calls for offering preganant women living with HIV antiretroviral medicines for life as soon as they’re diagnosed with the virus. The antiretrovirals protect not just their health, but that of their babies and their sexual partners.

The IATT describes the toolkit as:

“a collection of assessment tools and checklists that describe the key considerations to be taken into account when transitioning to Option B/B+.

The toolkit provides a roadmap to support the planning and implementation of Option B/B+, and to help countries scale up more effective interventions and programs to achieve the goals of the Global Plan Towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive.

For more about Option B+, click on the picture above and explore the toolkit on the IATT website.

Charting progress towards an AIDS-free generation

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 11:50:00 -0500

How do you bring about the end of AIDS? We wish it could happen overnight. But there’s really only one way: step by step, year by year, country by country.

A new digital dashboard helps us measure progress among three critical groups in the UN’s priority countries for reversing the epidemic. It comes from the Interagency Task Team on the Prevention and Treatment of HIV in Pregnant Women, Mothers and Children — also known in our section as the IATT.

The dashboard tracks the journey toward a set of goals agreed by the global community with a 2015 deadline. Here’s how the IATT explains it:

The purpose of The Dashboard is to provide a simple snapshot of progress towards the 2015 targets outlined in the Global Plan Towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections Among Children by 2015 and Keeping their Mothers Alive, adopted in 2011. The Dashboard brings together key pieces of global and priority country-specific data compiled and reported by UN agencies into a single place, highlighting achievements and gaps in access to PMTCT services, utilization, ARV coverage and paediatric outcomes. Color coding is used to highlight areas where specific countries are doing well or making slow progress and may require additional resources, to achieve Global Plan targets.

You can get more information on the dashboard - including some impressive tables and illustrations - on this page of the IATT website.

Our take-home message for 2012? “A new generation free of...

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 12:10:09 -0500

Our take-home message for 2012? “A new generation free of HIV, free of AIDS, must begin with children,” emphasizes UNICEF HIV/AIDS Section Chief Craig McClure. Check it out in the UNICEF 2012: Year in Review video.

"One large study showed 3 to 5 percent of people with HIV were coming in with pre-treatment..."

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 10:55:16 -0500

““One large study showed 3 to 5 percent of people with HIV were coming in with pre-treatment resistance” to antiretroviral drugs used to treat HIV.”

- - Dr David Grelotti, a researcher at the Harvard University School of Public Health

The US NPR radio network reports that some people found to be living with HIV are turning out to be resistant to antiretroviral medicines commonly used to treat the virus — even if they’ve never been treated themselves.

The solution to the mystery may lie in recreational use of the medicines, sometimes in combination with street drugs.

In a commentary in The Lancet, Dr Grelotti says that illicit use of antiretrovirals appears to be creating immune HIV strains by the users, who can then transmit those strains to others.

One example is “Whoonga,” a South African combination of HIV medicines and street drugs.

UNICEF’s U-report application, recently launched in...

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 10:51:29 -0500

UNICEF’s U-report application, recently launched in Zambia, has been operating in Uganda since May, 2011. A new video from the Ugandan rap group One Heart Family encourages young people to use the service. As a UNICEF story puts it:

The initiative equips mobile phone users with the tools to establish and enforce new standards of transparency and accountability in development programming and services.

By sending the text message, ‘join,’ to a toll-free number and submitting a few personal details, anyone with a mobile phone can become a volunteer ‘U-reporter’, sharing their observations and ideas on a wide range of development issues.

In less than a year, the population of U-reporters has grown to over 89,000, with 400 to 500 joining the network daily.

U-report already has a strong following among adolescents and young people, who are especially comfortable with the platform’s reliance on mobile phone technology.

"We want to see zero new HIV infections, particularly among Namibia’s youth"

Thu, 20 Dec 2012 10:30:49 -0500

“We want to see zero new HIV infections, particularly among Namibia’s youth”

- Petrina Hangura, Namibia’s Deputy Minister of Health and Social Services, praises her country’s young people for embracing HIV prevention methods and changing their behaviour to reduce their risk of contracting the virus. More in this article from Windhoek’s New Era newspaper.

Namibia has joined countries around the world in committing to eliminate new HIV infections among infants by 2015.

Photo: A sign calling for the end of AIDS supports young people...

Wed, 19 Dec 2012 10:30:35 -0500

Photo: A sign calling for the end of AIDS supports young people on Madagascar’s Makalomba Beach

After Cyclone Ivan in 2008, UNICEF was in Madagascar doing relief work. Youth Development Officer Mariam Toure was taking part in that effort. She wanted to find out what life was like for young people there following the storm.

Mariam found some of them hanging out by a grassy area beside the highway in the town of Soanierana Ivongo. They described the situation in their community. Some young people were engaging in underaged sex, delinquency and petty theft, with domestic and international tourism in the area making matters worse. Young men who worked as porters at the town’s boat marina spent their earnings on alcohol and drugs. Many girls and young women were engaged in prostitution, which put them at increased risk of acquiring HIV.

“The real problem,” they told Mariam, “is that we have nowhere to go and nothing to do.”

One thing UNICEF can do for young people like these is offer training in “life skills” - knowledge that improves self-awareness and fosters ability in areas such as communication, critical thinking and conflict resolution. This training can also include instruction in sexual and reproductive health, including HIV and AIDS prevention.

Mariam ensured that the young people she’d met and others like them received life skills training, with lessons in protecting themselves against the HIV and AIDS epidemic as part of the curriculum. But she also gave them something to do, presenting a gift from UNICEF of sporting goods, including a volleyball and net. That brought a cheer from the group — and triggered a rush to the beach to play.

Photo: Young people in Kitwe, Zambia, explore the U-Report SMS...

Thu, 13 Dec 2012 10:30:54 -0500

Photo: Young people in Kitwe, Zambia, explore the U-Report SMS platform

Earlier this month, UNICEF’s U-Report SMS reporting platform launched in Zambia, after having proven its worth through use in Uganda. U-Report lets a country’s citizens provide immediate feedback on development issues including HIV and AIDS. Most of the platform’s Ugandan users are young people. Learn more in this story on Uganda’s experience with U-Report.

Participants in a UNICEF workshop on mHealth chaired by frog...

Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:35:00 -0500

Participants in a UNICEF workshop on mHealth chaired by frog design in Washington, DC, July, 2012

If you don’t know what mHealth is about, the answer may be closer than you think. In fact, it might be ringing in your pocket right now.

mHealth refers to ‘mobile health’ - the use of mobile devices like cellphones and tablets to support medical and public health initiatives. The annual mHealth Summit unites governments, NGO’s and UN agencies as well as experts in tech, medicine and industry to strengthen mobile health around the world.

This year’s summit took place earlier this month in Washington, DC, USA — and UNICEF and partners were there, launching a report on mHealth strategies to strengthen initatives for preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT).

Mobile phones are common even in the most rural parts of the developing world. They support PMTCT services by delivering test results and appointment reminders, for instance, through projects such as UNICEF’s Programme Mwana and RemindMi.

The report builds on work done by UNICEF and its design partner frog in a one-day workshop held at the AIDS 2012 conference in Washington earlier this year. It centered on a framework focusing on the critical thousand-day period between a woman’s pregnancy and her child’s second birthday — a window of opportunity for enhancing health for the future.

You’ll find more details in this post on the UNICEF innovation blog.

Abbreviations and acronyms are so common in UN culture that...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 17:15:00 -0500

Abbreviations and acronyms are so common in UN culture that those of us who work here sometimes forget we’re even using them — until someone from outside looks at us in bewilderment as we’re describing what we do.

One acronym we’re using a lot in UNICEF’s HIV and AIDS Section this week is ‘IATT.’ That’s short for ‘interagency task team’: a cluster of organizations from inside and outside the UN world that have pooled their resources and expertise to address a specific issue.

It’s getting attention because the Interagency Task Team on the Prevention and Treatment of HIV Infection in Pregnant Women, Mothers and Children just launched its new website.

UNICEF and the World Health Organization co-chair the IATT, which describes itself as:

… a group of 28 multilateral, government, and non-governmental organizations that are committed to strengthening global, regional and national partnerships and programs that address the survival of pregnant women, mothers and children living with HIV….

The IATT deals with some issues that can be hard for non-specialists to understand, but the site is easy to navigate and accessible to people who aren’t experts in the HIV and AIDS epidemic.

One good place to start is the page devoted to the 2011 UNAIDS Global Plan Towards the Elimination of New HIV Infections Among Children by 2015 and Keeping Their Mothers Alive. That’s a mouthful, but the essence is easy to understand: it’s a commitment by countries around the world to reduce new HIV infections among infants by 90%, and halve new infections among women aged 14-59, both by 2015.

The deadline is close, but the IATT is working to help the world community hit the targets in time. Take a look at the new site and see how they’re doing.

The sex-and-relationships drama Shuga: Love, Sex, Money,...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 17:01:00 -0500

The sex-and-relationships drama Shuga: Love, Sex, Money, produced by UNICEF and partners, is to receive an award on World AIDS Day (1 December). The series, set in sub-Saharan Africa, is being honored as “Best Overall Eduatainment” at the Edutainment Africa Awards (EAA) in Kampala, Uganda.

Shuga tells the stories on fictional young people navigating life in urban and rural Africa. The series focuses on compelling drama as it educates the audience about HIV prevention.

The EAA judges recognized Shuga for its “constructive role in educating and entertaining society.”

After collaborating on a TV version in the project’s first season, UNICEF has worked with partners to create a radio-based second season, this time focusing on the life of a rural girl drawn to the city.

"New HIV infections in children are down, but reaching the goal of an AIDS-free generation requires..."

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:23:00 -0500

“New HIV infections in children are down, but reaching the goal of an AIDS-free generation requires treating more pregnant women and children living with HIV.”

- From our World AIDS Day media statement

Our HIV and AIDS Chief, Craig McClure, is taking questions now...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:09:00 -0500

Our HIV and AIDS Chief, Craig McClure, is taking questions now on Reddit’s “Ask Me Anything” for World AIDS Day. He’s on until 1300 EST. Stop by and ask him anything — including why we’re closer than ever to an AIDS-free generation! Click the picture to follow the conversation.

UNICEF’s Myanmar office sent us a beautiful story for...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:54:00 -0500

UNICEF’s Myanmar office sent us a beautiful story for World AIDS Day. It’s about Aye Aye Myint, a wife and mother of four, who learned while pregnant with her fourth child that she was living with HIV.

It turned out that Aye Aye had contracted the virus from her husband. She didn’t know that he was living with HIV. She felt betrayed — and she was determined to protect the health of the child she carried.

Aye Aye entered a programme to prevent mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) of HIV. Both parents and their children received HIV tests at a local clinic.

One of Aye Aye’s daughters turned out to be living with the virus as well. But through PMTCT, her youngest remains free of HIV.

Aye Aye was in shock when she learned about the impact of the virus on her own life and that of her family. For a while, she stopped enjoying life and caring for her family. But the good news about her youngest daughter inspired her to start weaving again — an activity that both gave her pleasure and helped her to earn money.

Today, both Aye Aye and her husband are involved in voluntary HIV counseling and prevention work in their village. Their daughters have participated in a local group for children affected by the epidemic.

Aye Aye’s story shows how important it is to know one’s HIV status. But it also illustrates the value of PMTCT — an intervention that has brought the prospect of an AIDS-free generation within reach.

Photo: @UNICEF Myanmar/2012/Myo Thame

UNICEF HIV and AIDS Chief Craig McClure on Reddit's "Ask Me Anything"

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:38:10 -0500

UNICEF HIV and AIDS Chief Craig McClure on Reddit's "Ask Me Anything":

Craig’s live at 12 noon EST, taking questions for World AIDS Day on this popular social news site. Join us!

In the developing world, community health workers provide women...

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:03:29 -0500

In the developing world, community health workers provide women and children with a vital link to medical care. That’s especially important to those who can’t regularly reach a clinic because of poverty, distance or logistics.

Viola, a village health worker, makes her rounds in rural Zimbabwe on a UNICEF-supplied bicycle. She delivers antenatal care and supports services to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV. On this World AIDS Day (observed on 1 December), take a moment to think of the health workers across the developing world who bring care and treatment to people affected by the epidemic.

unicef: Children practice yoga and relaxation techniques in the...

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:39:56 -0400

unicef:

Children practice yoga and relaxation techniques in the playroom at GAPA (AIDS Prevention and Support Group) in Salvador, capital of the eastern state of Bahia in Brazil. Many of the children are being treated with universal antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, provided free of charge by the Ministry of Health. The UNICEF-assisted NGO advocates for the rights of HIV-positive children, including the right to life, health, nutrition, education, social and community life.

© UNICEF/NYHQ2006-1324/Claudio Versiani

http://www.unicef.org