The Joint Unit­ed Na­tions Pro­gramme on HIV/AIDS (UN­AIDS) has raised alarm over the in­creas­ing in­ci­dence of HIV among young peo­ple in the Caribbean, high­light­ing that coun­tries like Guyana and Suri­name re­port alarm­ing rates of 14%, while Bar­ba­dos sees num­bers as high as 37%.

Ac­cord­ing to re­gion­al health of­fi­cials, this trend ne­ces­si­tates im­me­di­ate scruti­ny and ac­tion.

UN­AIDS Mul­ti-Coun­try Di­rec­tor, Dr. Richard Amenyah, em­pha­sized that de­spite some progress, the de­cline in new in­fec­tions among ado­les­cents re­mains slug­gish.

He not­ed that glob­al­ly, in­di­vid­u­als aged 15 to 24 ac­count for 28% of new HIV in­fec­tions, with the Caribbean mir­ror­ing this con­cern at 27% of ap­prox­i­mate­ly 15,000 new cas­es.

“If we aim to erad­i­cate AIDS as a pub­lic health threat by 2030, we must ad­dress the trou­bling rise in in­fec­tions among youth in the re­gion,” he said.

UN­AIDS says the plight of chil­dren and ado­les­cents is equal­ly dire, with 2.38 mil­lion young peo­ple world­wide liv­ing with HIV as of the end of 2023. Among the 630,000 deaths due to AIDS-re­lat­ed ill­ness­es, 90,000 in­volved in­di­vid­u­als un­der 20.

Al­though there have been de­creas­es in in­fec­tions among chil­dren and younger ado­les­cents since 2000, progress has stalled, par­tic­u­lar­ly for those aged 15-24. Last year, 71% of new in­fec­tions in the 10-19 age group oc­curred among girls, with stark re­gion­al dis­par­i­ties in in­fec­tion rates.

Amenyah out­lined sev­er­al crit­i­cal chal­lenges that hin­der ef­fec­tive HIV pre­ven­tion and treat­ment among the youth and point­ed to so­cial norms, vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty to high-risk be­hav­iors, and pol­i­cy ob­sta­cles con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the epi­dem­ic’s per­sis­tence.

UN­AIDS not­ed that the stig­ma sur­round­ing HIV re­mains a for­mi­da­ble bar­ri­er and young in­di­vid­u­als fear re­jec­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion, which dis­cour­ages them from seek­ing test­ing or treat­ment. Girls and young women face height­ened risks due to gen­der in­equal­i­ty, ear­ly sex­u­al de­but, and gen­der-based vi­o­lence, while mar­gin­al­ized groups, in­clud­ing those en­gaged in sex work, are al­so dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly af­fect­ed.

Men­tal health is­sues among young peo­ple liv­ing with HIV re­quire ur­gent at­ten­tion. Many ex­pe­ri­ence iso­la­tion and anx­i­ety about their fu­ture, but tai­lored men­tal health ser­vices are of­ten lack­ing. How­ev­er, ad­vance­ments in tech­nol­o­gy of­fer new av­enues for en­gage­ment. Dig­i­tal plat­forms, so­cial me­dia, and telemed­i­cine can fa­cil­i­tate ac­cess to vi­tal in­for­ma­tion and ser­vices.

Amenyah urged the pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of youth-friend­ly ser­vices that re­move bar­ri­ers to ac­cess. “To pro­mote the health and dig­ni­ty of all young peo­ple, we must de­vel­op de­lib­er­ate health poli­cies and strate­gies that de­liv­er high-qual­i­ty, con­fi­den­tial, and non-dis­crim­i­na­to­ry HIV and sex­u­al health ser­vices,” he con­clud­ed.

BRIDGETOWN , Bar­ba­dos, Sep. 19, CMC