World leaders, those on the frontlines of the AIDS response, civil society, academics and youth have agreed that there is no way to end AIDS as a public health threat by 2030 without tackling persistent inequalities among marginalised groups.
The exclusion of key regions, contexts and actors must be addressed in order to successfully and significantly reduce HIV and AIDS by 2020, many have noted during the High Level Meeting on Ending AIDS this week.
It is a grim fact that prisoners in most countries suffer from poorer health than non-prisoners, and that their right to health is not always protected. But for certain groups these rights can be even more elusive. Such is the case for women.
Wheelchair-bound, her body now skeletal from full blown AIDS, disabled 38-year-old Melisa Chigumba attempts to wave away a swarm of flies hovering around her face as she sits outside her home in Chachacha, a remote area in Shurugwi, 278 kilometers south of the capital, Harare.
When health officer Kennedy Mulenga was faced with a male patient developing breasts at the remote Ngwerere Clinic 30km north of the Zambian capital, Lusaka, he logged onto Virtual Doctors to get help solving the medical mystery.
Vincent Mugyenyi, a 65-year-old retired pilot from the Ugandan Air Force, has lost count of how many dialysis treatment slots he has had to attend in the eight years he has been fighting chronic kidney disease.
With the current Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expiring at the end of this year to be replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will set priorities for the next fifteen years, 2015 will be a crucial year for the future of global development.
In rural Zambia and Malawi, new mums face long delays finding out if they have passed HIV on to their babies.
Lungile Thamela knows how he got infected with HIV: through his reckless choice to have unprotected sex with his partner although he knew she was living with HIV.
Across Africa, men have lower rates than women for HIV testing, antiretroviral treatment enrollment and adherence, viral load suppression and survival.
HIV among teenagers is devastating families in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, where AIDS has become the No. 1 killer of adolescents.
Marginalised communities and civil society groups helping them are warning of a “tragedy” in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (EECA) as international funding for HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) programmes in the regions is cut back.
When she found out that she had human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), Thabisile Mkhize (not her real name) was scared.
Two years ago, Shola* was kicked out of the family house in Abeokuta, in southwestern Nigeria, after testing HIV-positive at age 13. He was living with his father, his stepmother and their seven children.