COMPENDIUM OF PROMISING PRACTICES of African Faith Community Interventions Against Pediatric and Adolescent HIV

The situation of children living with HIV is a distressing crisis, as the targets set at the 2016 United Nations HIV High-Level Meeting on Ending AIDS have been missed, leaving nearly half of the 1.7 million children aged 0–14 without antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2021. The disparity between treatment coverage for children (52%) and adults (76%) has widened, resulting in almost 100,000 child deaths from AIDS-related illnesses in 2021 alone. A critical challenge is to quickly identify and treat children with HIV, particularly those missed at birth or during breastfeeding. Alarmingly, only 62% of HIV-exposed infants were tested by two months of age in 2021, despite the high risk of mortality without timely intervention. Ensuring access to optimal, child-friendly treatment is essential. Faith communities, although historically significant contributors to the global AIDS response, remain underrecognized and under engaged in efforts to meet testing, prevention, and treatment goals for children and adolescents. These communities, motivated by spiritual beliefs, have provided vital HIV services, particularly to the most marginalized, since the early days of the AIDS pandemic, yet their full impact has only recently been acknowledged.