Slums And HIV Meeting Brief – Issues And Suggestions
Research has shown that HIV prevalence is higher in urban areas than in rural areas in southern and eastern Africa. Furthermore, as urbanization and the treatment of HIV increases, so does the proportion of people living with HIV and AIDS in cities. As a result a number of organizations have conducted research to investigate the relationship between HIV and urban areas with the ultimate goal being to create improved responses. The Slums and HIV strategy paper served as a basis of discussion for the Slums and HIV meeting organized by HEARD. Issues raised in this meeting included a biomedical focus on HIV and AIDS, government and governance, the limited capacity of health and planning staff, mainstreaming that had not been implemented, the possibility of a larger number of men having sex with men in urban settings, and finally, unmanaged urban growth. Suggestions and potential action plans recommended that policy issues should be addressed with a city-level response plan in line with National Strategic Plans, cities should be guided through the procedures that need to be followed, in-depth studies on slum areas are needed, the District Health Information Service must be improved and Geographical Statistics Project (GSP) are needed to understand the special and physical processes of people in urban areas, the allocation of financial resources for HIV responses, training of senior managers and politicians, and finally, municipalities need to conduct more HIV prevalence studies, as well as an HIV focal person is needed to drive key issues. Systematic discussion is needed, with tight recommendations to address the issues of HIV and slum areas. Particular focus must be placed on addressing the social and economic factors that perpetuate the growth of urban slum areas, so that HIV prevalence is reduced.
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