Care and support

Testing for HIV, Zambia. © 2004 Gideon Mendel for International HIV/AIDS Alliance

The Alliance believes that appropriate health and social services should be accessible for everyone living with and affected by HIV. This includes HIV testing and counselling, treatment, palliative care, support and prevention. All of these should also be available to children and others who have to face the effects of HIV – caring for or losing parents or siblings, for example. It is especially important that such services are available and accessible for those most vulnerable, especially sex workers, men who have sex with men and drug users. We are committed to making access to care, treatment and prevention a reality.

Improving access to care, treatment and support

The right to health, including the right to care, treatment and support, is a basic human right. Government inaction, the high costs of medicines and diagnostics (including anti-retrovirals), under-resourced health systems, stigma and discrimination, all act to undermine the rights of people with HIV to treatment, care, support and prevention. This leaves the majority of the world’s population without access to life-saving therapy or quality care, support and prevention. The Alliance believes that in order to prevent and control the HIV pandemic, the rights of those most vulnerable must be protected, promoted and fulfilled. By using a rights-based approach that is rooted in public health and development principles, the Alliance aims to increase access to quality health care for all people with HIV, and to advocate for this as a matter of great urgency.

Safe and effective anti-retroviral treatment

Even where anti-retroviral treatment becomes available, safe and effective roll out requires the active engagement of communities affected by HIV and people living with HIV. For people to believe that treatment is effective and to understand how its works and why adherence and prevention are important, community structures and community leadership, especially from people living with HIV, must support and endorse the introduction and use of these powerful medical technologies.

This process of community engagement challenges traditional models of health care that are resource intensive and have relied heavily on doctors and other health care workers as the main drivers in delivering healthcare. Inadequate understanding and support exists for new models that place communities and people with HIV in the centre of decision making and action on the provision of anti-retroviral therapy. The Alliance’s work aims to strengthen the interface between health systems and communities; it also aims to support and resource active engagement of people with HIV and their communities in the provision of safe and effective anti-retroviral treatment.