Adolescent HIV treatment

Last update: July 2023 | Next update: July 2024

About six out of ten adolescents 10-19 years of age living with HIV are on antiretroviral medications

Fast facts:
  • Of the 1.65 million [1.18 million-2.19 million] adolescents aged 10-19 living with HIV globally, only 65 per cent, or 1.1 million, were receiving life-saving antiretroviral therapy (ART) in 2022.

According to WHO and UNAIDS, HIV among children and adolescents presents unique features that affect how diagnosis, treatment and care is provided across the age continuum of 0–19 years. Optimal antiretroviral drug regimens may require changes as children age and grow.  Countries need to adapt and tailor service delivery between younger adolescents (10–14 years old) and older adolescents (15–19 years old) due to significant differences in health-seeking behaviour, number acquiring HIV infection and health outcomes including AIDS-related causes. Further, models of care to retain children and adolescents in treatment and ensure that they have suppressed viral loads must leverage different opportunities and address various challenges over the life-course. It is a well-known fact that children and adolescents have lower reported treatment coverage, adherence to treatment and viral suppression rates than older age groups.

 

Data sources + methodology

Global AIDS monitoring 2023

In order to monitor the HIV response and progress towards achieving global goals, countries submit national and subnational data on a host of indicators to the Global AIDS Monitoring (GAM) system. Annual submissions are reviewed and validated. Data consist of programmatic data for HIV prevention, testing and treatment. Other indicators require data from population-based surveys and surveys focused on key populations at risk of HIV infection.

For more information, click here.

UNAIDS Estimates and Spectrum’s AIDS Impact Model

Each year countries update their AIDS Impact Model in Avenir Health’s Spectrum software to develop the latest estimates for the HIV epidemic. Supported by UNAIDS, WHO and UNICEF these estimates are used to inform programme and policy decisions for HIV epidemic response.

Useful links:

Methods for HIV modelling are developed by the UNAIDS Reference Group on Estimates, Modelling and Projections.

All available data on HIV estimates are available at aidsinfo.unaids.org.

Nationally representative surveys

Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), AIDS Indicator Surveys (AIS), Population-based HIV Impact Assessments (PHIA) reproductive health surveys, sexual behaviour surveys and other nationally representative surveys are currently used to collect data on HIV and AIDS.