Showing 21 - 36 of 36 Results for "India"

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Further interventions to provide support programs, including counseling, are needed for AIDS-orphaned children and their caregivers to combat depression, social isolation and stigma. Studies found that AIDS orphans reported insufficient food, depression and stigma.
Orphans and Vulnerable Children
1 study
Interventions are needed to scale up and increase access to methadone and buprenorphine—effective agonist therapy for the treatment of drug dependence, as well as needle exchange/distribution programs. Studies found only tiny fractions of those who need maintenance medication had access. A study found that user fees for methadone maintenance programs presented a barrier to access to care. In places where no needle exchange programs are operating, high rates of borrowing of used syringes occur, placing IDUs at high risk of acquiring HIV.
Women Who Use Drugs and Female Partners of Men Who Use Drugs
1 study
Interventions are needed to provide women and their partners with a better understanding of the risk of acquiring HIV through sexual practices as well as through injecting drug use (IOM, 2007). Studies found low rates of condom use despite sexual relationships with IDUs, lack of knowledge by IDUs on sexual and reproductive health and lack of access to clean needles. A study also found that many MSM and male intravenous drug users avoid disclosure of their sexual and drug risk behavior along with their HIV status due to stigma and gender norms and that most wives reported violence and little or no condom use. HIV-positive male IDUs want help with disclosure to their wives. Most wives of IDUs reported only a single lifetime sexual partner and only a tiny proportion reported injecting drug use.
Women Who Use Drugs and Female Partners of Men Who Use Drugs
1 study
Laws and practices that obstruct adolescents’ access to services, such as parental consent requirements, age, and marital status requirements, must be aligned with the actual behavior of adolescents. Studies found that legal requirements restricted adolescents from getting tested for HIV even if they were sexually active and at risk for HIV. "There is a strong evidence base that the stigma, discrimination and criminalization affecting adolescent key populations aged 10 to 17 is intensified due to domestic and international legal constructs that rely on law-enforcement based interventions dependent upon arrests, pre-trial detention, incarceration and compulsory ‘rehabilitation’ in institutional placements," particularly among adolescents who sell sex or inject drugs (Conner, 2015: para 1).
Increasing Access to Services
1 study
Barriers such as cost of medications, stigma, long clinic waits, lack of food, and child-care responsibilities, among others, may discourage women living with HIV from accessing antiretroviral therapy. A study found that patients who were living with HIV but did not access antiretroviral therapy were twice as likely as patients on antiretroviral therapy to report not having enough food to take with treatment as a concern, in addition to concerns about cost barriers. Another study found that cost of ARVs, with direct out of pocket payment at point of care delivery decreased access to ARVs. Another study found transport costs and waiting time a barrier to access to treatment. Increased efforts are needed so that those in pre-ART care understand that HIV can be transmitted prior to ART eligibility.
Provision and Access
1 study
Ongoing surveillance is needed to assess the impact of cART on infants (both HIV-negative and HIV-positive) exposed in utero and during breastfeeding. A recent US study had encouraging results that among ARV-exposed uninfected children, no learning issues were noted (Nozyce et al., 2014) and another US-based study found no increased risk for infants exposed to ART (Phiri et al., 2014). A pilot ART registry in Africa has been launched
Antenatal Care - Treatment
1 study
Strategies, including legal strategies, are needed to empower pregnant women living with HIV to ask questions, be properly informed and to challenge stigma, disrespect and abuse. [See also %{s:67}] Consequences for violating patient confidentiality, redress for women with HIV facing discrimination in facilities, and stigma reduction efforts are needed to increase adherence to cART, prior to, during and post pregnancy, including training for providers.
Antenatal Care - Treatment
1 study
Further interventions are needed to provide support (physical, psychological, technological, economic) to patients and caregivers. Studies showed that patients and caregivers have many physical, psychological, and economic unmet needs, with high rates of depression and poverty, and in some cases, rely on their young children or relatives to provide care with no outside support. Some studies show that caregivers suffer from stigma attached to caring for someone HIV-positive. [See also %{s:67}] Some studies showed that women have a lower quality of life than men. A study in a high HIV prevalence area showed that for women, lack of control in sexual decision-making was associated with depression, while for men, intergenerational sex was associated with depression.
Women and Girls
1 study
Efforts are needed to reform laws that criminalize drug use and/or drug possession for personal use and to eliminate compulsory drug detention and instead, provide people who use drugs with access to HIV and health services, including harm reduction, and voluntary, effective evidence-based drug dependency treatment. Detention centers are administered by police, military or other national government public security authorities and operate outside the formal criminal justice system with detainees held without trial or right of appeal; those detained are not allowed to leave voluntarily (Wolfe, 2012). Studies found that female IDU were not given reproductive health services, including PMTCT services in compulsory detention and/or prison settings. Detoxification programs were substandard and ineffective. Despite high rates of HIV, antiretroviral treatment is largely unavailable in compulsory drug detention centers. IDUs who have started antiretroviral treatment should be able to continue treatment in prison with access to medical supervision. [See also %{s:11}]
Advancing Human Rights and Access to Justice for Women and Girls
1 study
Changing laws and policies, ending police violence, and other mechanisms are needed to protect sex workers from violence and rape. Studies found sex workers experienced high rates of violence and rape from clients and police, and that fear of arrest was a barrier to accessing health services. Studies also found that violence was associated with inconsistent condom use and HIV incidence. Studies also found high rates of violence from intimate partners and clients, but inability to press charges.
Female Sex Workers
1 study
Interventions, policies and budgets are needed to reduce sexual coercion and rape of both boys and girls, create awareness in communities that violence against children is unacceptable, strengthen child statutory protection systems, and conceptualize and implement appropriate child protection services in developing countries. Access to post-exposure prophylaxis in case of rape when the perpetrator is HIV-positive is also needed. [See also %{c:21}] In most countries of Eastern and Southern Africa, the age of consent for sex is 16. Despite these restrictions, more than 10% of girls have had sexual debut before age 15. A study found that in a sample of more than 1,000 males and more than 1,000 females, large numbers had experienced high rates of physical punishment, emotional abuse and touching of sexual organs when not wanted or sex due to force or coercion prior to age 18 and that incident HIV infections were more common in women who suffered emotional abuse, sexual abuse and physical punishment. Sexual abuse in men was associated with alcohol abuse and depression. Other studies found high rates of sexual coercion and high-risk behaviors among street children. “Few children disclose abuse, fewer still seek services and report to authorities, virtually no children actually receive services and perpetrators rarely suffer consequences” (Sommarin et al., 2014: S213). Most research does not provide adolescent-specific data on violence, instead listing results for ages 15 to 49. Reviews have not found evidence that preventive responses have had an impact on rates of sexual abuse. Effective programs in the US and Canada have not been assessed for adaptation in other countries.
Mitigating Risk
1 study
Evaluated interventions are urgently needed to reduce multiple and concurrent partnerships – particularly for both men and women where perceived HIV risk is low and the woman is subjected to gender norms of faithfulness while the man is subjected to gender norms of having multiple sexual partners. [See also %{s:57}] Studies found that married women were at risk of HIV acquisition, but were either unaware of the risk or did not believe they were at risk. Studies found that extra-relational sex on the part of the husband was common. Other studies found that a significant portion of women have had high rates of multiple partners. Other studies found that serial monogamous relationships led to a high risk of HIV acquisition.
Partner Reduction
1 study
Adolescents living with HIV need information and services through adolescent-friendly HIV services on a number of topics, including disclosure, safer sex, contraception, safe motherhood and gender-based violence. Studies found that health providers were unprepared to discuss HIV and contraception with adolescents who acquired HIV through perinatal transmission, despite the fact that significant numbers of these adolescents were already sexually active. Another study found that these adolescents need skills to disclose their serostatus to sexual partner. WHO recommends that perinatally infected adolescents be advised of their positive serostatus by age 6 (WHO, 2013) but there is little guidance on disclosure for adolescents. Facilitated disclosure by parents and providers to adolescents living with HIV may lead to higher retention in HIV care (Arrive et al., 2012). Parents living with HIV whose adolescents may be living with HIV also need assistance to disclose to their adolescents, as parents fear rejection from their children. Positive health dignity and prevention interventions can help people living with HIV lead healthy lives and reduce HIV transmission, but tailored interventions for adolescents and their parents have not been evaluated for effectiveness, although a trial is currently ongoing (Cunningham, 2015; Mofeson and Cotton, 2013). One study found that 29% of young women aged 16 to 24 living with HIV reported being forced to have sex. No validated curriculum that was shown to be effective for reducing unsafe sex among adolescents living with HIV was found, although some manuals have been developed (Parker et al., 2013c; UNESCO and GNP+, 2012).
Increasing Access to Services
1 study
Interventions are needed to reduce barriers to treatment adherence and to understand how these differ by sex. Increased research is needed to understand the most effective strategies to increase adherence. Studies found that a number of barriers that impact treatment adherence, such as violence, stigma, transport costs, childcare, forced migration, the need for food, the need to hide their medication from their male partners and changes in body image. Screening and treatment for depression may improve adherence, although some studies have shown mixed results. A review found that adherence differs by sex, but with little disaggregation for which factors affect women. Data collection should be more nuanced and not assume that women fall into static groups. A study of people living with HIV who disengaged from ART found that harsh and disrespectful treatment by providers, as well as competing work and livelihood demands, lack of funds for transport, etc. made attendance at ART clinics challenging.
Adherence and Support
1 study
Intensified efforts are needed to increase male and female condom use and reduce multiple partnerships by people who know their HIV-positive status and are not virally suppressed, including young people. Studies found that consistent condom use between discordant couples (or with partners whose serostatus was unknown) was low and, among those on treatment, decreased over time. Lack of condom use was associated with fear of disclosure. People living with HIV as well as couples also believed that treatment with antiretroviral therapy meant that they were either cured of HIV or could no longer transmit the virus and were less likely to disclose their positive serostatus. In some studies, men are more likely to report condom use than women, "given the limited control that women have over the use of the male condom" (Walusaga et al., 2012: 698). Particular attention is also needed to provide condoms to men living with HIV who frequent sex workers, as well as for sex workers themselves to protect themselves (Paz-Bailey et al., 2012). [See %{s:9}]
Staying Healthy and Reducing Transmission
1 study
Additional efforts are needed to provide information and more contraceptive options for women living with HIV (or whose serostatus is unknown) who do not desire to have a child or wish to space the next pregnancy. The 2012 WHO guidelines on hormonal contraceptives and HIV should be widely disseminated to programs and providers. Studies found that many HIV-positive women had significant numbers of unintended pregnancies and that preferred contraceptive methods were not available.
Meeting the Sexual and Reproductive Health Needs of Women Living With HIV
1 study