Time: 14:45-16:15
Room: MH4
Reporter: MBABAZI Jeannette and GASENGAYIRE Aliane

The Guest of Honor at the session was the First lady of Rwanda, Jeannette Kagame. There were also important dignitaries at the session.

Discussants highlighted that the HIV and AIDS epidemic continues to have a disproportionate impact on adolescents and young people. AIDS remains a leading cause of death among adolescents with strong gender dimensions. Globally, far more adolescent girls than boys are living with HIV and are newly infected every year. Of the 250,000 new HIV infections that occurred among adolescents aged 10 to 19 years old in 2017, two in three were among adolescent girls. The situation is particularly relevant to sub-Saharan Africa, the global epicenter of HIV and AIDS and the region in which most new infections among adolescents occur. Adolescent girls accounted for more than two thirds of estimated new HIV infections in 2017 among those aged 15 to 19 in West and Central Africa. Yet adolescent girls are less informed about HIV than adolescent boys in all but three countries in the region.