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West and Central Africa is the region of the world where the burden of HIV is second. Although the response to HIV has progressed slowly, the political will is in a position to meet the challenges. Less than half of pregnant and badfeeding women were covered by prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) services in 2017. An estimated 69,000 adolescent girls 10 to 19 years old with HIV in 2017; compared to 2010. About the same number (67,000) of estimated new HIV infections occurred in children aged 0 to 9 in 2017. In 2017, coverage for HIV treatment by children was than 26%.
Analysis
West and Central Africa are home to 6% of the world's population, but the second largest burden of HIV; this proportion is likely to increase due to the relatively high incidence of HIV among adolescents and overall fertility in several countries. The launch of treatment catch-up plans in 12 countries reflects a renewed political commitment to accelerate the response of children and HIV. The plans offer the opportunity to view HIV testing as a major barrier to scaling up child treatment through innovative approaches such as point-of-care HIV diagnosis, family-based HIV testing, and HIV testing. integration of dual HIV / syphilis test.
In 2017 alone, Nigeria accounted for half of all children and adolescents living with HIV in the region, while four other countries – the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana – accounted for 30 % of the total population. total. The highly variable impact from one country to another underscores the need for a differentiated response to improve regional PMTCT programming and other responses in prevention and prevention. treatment of HIV in children and adolescents.
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