Time: 18:30 - 20:30
Venue: MH4
Reporters: GASENGAYIRE Aliane and MBABAZI Jeannette

Despite the progress made against HIV over the past 15 years and the availability of proven prevention and treatment methods, the annual number of new HIV infections among adults has remained static, at an estimated 1.9 million a year since 2010. Moreover, there has been resurgence of new HIV infections among key populations in some parts of the world.

With funding for prevention falling behind funding for treatment, fewer than one in five people at higher risk of HIV infection today have access to prevention programmes. UNAIDS modeling has shown that investing around a quarter of all the resources required for the AIDS response in HIV prevention services would be sufficient to make possible a range of prevention programmes, including condom programmes, pre-exposure prophylaxis, voluntary medical male circumcision, harm reduction, programmes to empower young women and girls, and mobilizing and providing essential service packages for and with key populations. A number of countries have already taken action to increase their domestic funding for HIV prevention.

The session was attended with first lady of Botswana Madam Neo Masisi and first lady of Rwanda Madam Jeannette KAGAME with different panelist. They stated that HIV prevention interventions is considered highly effective at reducing the risk of HIV transmission. These include the consistent and correct use of condoms, the consistent and correct use of antiretroviral treatment (ART) by people with HIV to maintain an undetectable viral load, the consistent and correct use of oral pre-exposure prophylaxis(PrEP) and the consistent and correct use of harm reduction interventions (needle and syringe programs, opioid agonist therapy and safe consumption services).