Men accounted for nearly a quarter of new HIV infections recorded in 2017, the UNAIDS Global AIDS Update 2018 has reported, and in order to build capacity in the area of improving access to health by men the Pan-Caribbean Partnership Against HIV and AIDS (PANCAP) will host a Knowledge Management Share Fair from Thursday in Trinidad and Tobago.
The UNAIDS report highlights that efforts to reach men and boys are constrained by health services insufficiently tailored to their needs and limited community-based services.
The Fair set to commenced on Thursday in Trinidad and Tobago will target participants including over 80 National AIDS Programme (NAP) Managers and Implementing Partners such as civil society organisations that work with people living with HIV and key population groups, including youth. It will also, among other objectives, provide recommendations for increasing access to services for men, particularly gay men and men who have sex with men.
The Share Fair is an initiative of the PANCAP Knowledge for Health project, which aims to enhance knowledge generation, sharing, and learning among HIV programme implementers and civil society around the implementation of ‘treat all’ and the ‘90-90-90 targets’.
While the ‘treat all’ recommendation speaks to the removal of limitations on eligibility for antiretroviral therapy among people living with HIV, the 90-90-90 targets aim at ensuring that 90 percent of the estimated number of people living with HIV are aware of their status; that 90 percent of those aware of their status are on sustained antiretroviral therapy, and of those on antiretroviral 90 percent must be virally suppressed.
The Share Fair will, moreover, expand on the capacity building initiatives implemented by the Project. These include the Knowledge Synthesis and Best Practices Workshop [2016], South-to-South Learning Exchanges to the Dominican Republic and Jamaica [2017-2018], Treat All Message Design Workshop [2017], “Collaborating and Learning towards Treat All” Share Fair [2018], PANCAP webinars, and other ongoing regional knowledge management efforts around 90-90-90 and Treat All.
The fair will provide a space for NAP managers and Civil Society Organization [CSO] representatives to showcase best practices from implementation experiences, discuss critical challenges, and provide recommendations for increasing access to services for men, including men who have sex with men and other key populations in achieving 90-90-90.
The Share Fair will include a Knowledge Café, which will highlight successful Men’s Health programmes. According to PANCAP Knowledge Coordinator, Dr. Shanti Singh-Anthony, the intention is to highlight innovations from country programmes that have achieved positive results in relation to increasing access to prevention, treatment, care and support services by men and boys.
