Decades of investment in the HIV response have created platforms that are proving useful in battling COVID-19 – just as they were in responding to the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak in western and central Africa.
The new report by UNAIDS examines how the experience of tackling HIV can help inform and guide effective, efficient, people-centred and sustainable COVID-19 responses.
This report focuses on three key issues: (1) how key lessons learned from the HIV response should inform COVID-19 responses; (2) how the HIV infrastructure is already driving COVID-19 responses and has the potential to catalyse accelerated progress through strategic action; and (3) how the COVID-19 response, informed by the history of responding to HIV, offers a historic opportunity to build a bridge to adaptable results-driven systems for health that work for people.
Key recommendations for the COVID-19 response include:
- COVID-19 responses should benefit from learning from the HIV experience
- Communities must be at the centre of COVID-19 responses
- COVID-19 responses should be guided by human rights principles and practices
- COVID-19 responses should be gender-sensitive and transformative
- COVID-19 demands a multi-sectorial, all-of-government, all-of-society response
- COVID-19 responses should leverage the HIV infrastructure
- COVID-19 strategic information data must be used to guide action, increase accountability and improve programme performance
- COVID-19 responses will require strong political leadership
- We must use COVID-19 to reimagine systems for health
To read and download the report, follow this link>>>.