Report on the Global HIV/AIDS epidemic

Report on the global HIV/AIDS epidemic - June 2000

Since this vision was formulated, UNAIDS has identified new opportunities for prioritizing action and accelerating progress. UNAIDS proposes to target action along five
strategic axes. Two are dealt with elsewhere in this report, while the others are discussed in separate sections below:
* creating political will and mobilizing resources (see pages 107-115)
* increasing access to voluntary HIV counselling and testing: over and above the
benefits for prevention, discussed earlier (see page 78), individuals who learn
they have HIV can gain access to support at an earlier stage and, with new preventive regimens, may live longer and healthier lives (see pages 105-106)
* increasing access to psychosocial support and impact alleviation
* improving health service delivery
* increasing access to drugs of special interest to people living with HIV infection.
When possible, it is best for countries to develop plans for care and support as part
of their strategic planning on HIV/AIDS, whether at national or district level. Health
system reform can offer an opportunity to look at the range of care and support
needs in a comprehensive manner (see Box 17).
Box 17. Health reforms and HIV: experience from Phayao Province,
northern Thailand
The Phayao Health Office undertook a review of its efforts to reform the health sector in the light of the lessons learnt from reducing the spread of HIV and caring for
people with AIDS in this badly affected province of the country. The Office posed a
number of questions to see whether the reform was really improving the health sector's capacity to tackle the epidemic effectively.
Quality of life and autonomy are important concerns of people with HIV and
their families.
* Does the health reform aim only to reduce rates of sickness and death?
* Or is the reform also geared to better quality of life, less dependence and greater
autonomy?
People with HIV require comprehensive support, and not just medicines.
* Does the health reform aim mainly at better provision of health care?
* Or does it also enable the health sector to catalyse community action and put
health issues on the agenda of society and its decision-makers?

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