Adolescent HIV treatment

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.

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Globally, adolescents 10-19 years account for about 4 per cent of all people living with HIV, 10 per cent of new HIV infections and 4 per cent of all AIDS-related deaths. In 2022, about 1.1 million adolescents 10-19 years, or 65 per cent of adolescents living with HIV globally, received antiretroviral treatment.

Antiretroviral treatment coverage was 65 and 66 percent among adolescent girls and boys, respectively. In order to reach the 95-95-95 targets by 2025, there is an urgent need to ramp up treatment efforts among adolescents.

Antiretroviral treatment coverage among adolescents 10-19 years varies across regions, with the lowest treatment coverage in Middle East and North Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean (42 and 44 per cent, respectively) and the highest in Eastern and Southern Africa (70 per cent).

Globally, antiretroviral treatment coverage does not vary too drastically among adolescent boys and girls 10-19 years, which is also the case in West and Central Africa. In Latin American and the Caribbean and East Asia and Pacific, antiretroviral treatment coverage is higher among adolescent girls compared to boys 10-19 years. In Eastern and Southern Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, adolescent boys 10-19 years have higher antiretroviral treatment coverage rates compared to adolescent girls 10-19 years.

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