Abstract
Men, especially young men, have been consistently missing from the HIV care cascade, leading to poor health outcomes in men and ongoing transmission of HIV in young women in South Africa. Although these men may not be missing for the same reasons across the cascade and may need different interventions, early work has shown similar trends in men’s low uptake of HIV care services and suggested that the social costs of testing and accessing care are extremely high for men, particularly in South Africa. Interventions and data collection have hitherto, by and large, focused on men in relation to HIV prevention in women and have not approached the problem through the male lens. Using the participatory method, the overall aim of this study is to improve health outcomes in men and women through formative work to co-create male-specific interventions in an HIV-hyper endemic setting in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Highlights
The report indicates that the HIV incidence rate in young males aged 15–24 years increased by 11% for the first time in South Africa, low condom usage and early sexual debut before age 15 years is increasing among young males while age-disparate sex with older men continues to increase amongst adolescent girls [3]
Participants), younger males living in the research areas to participate in the workshop to design an intervention that is suitable for them to access HIV care services
Men have been consistently missing from the cascade of HIV care, leading to poor health outcomes in men and ongoing transmission of HIV in young women. These men may not be missing for the same reasons across the cascade and may need different interventions, early work has shown similar trends in men’s low uptake of HIV care services and suggested that the social costs of testing and accessing care are extremely high for men, in South Africa [3,5,6,12,17,18]
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. South Africa (SA) is disproportionately affected by the HIV epidemic and is constantly striving to reach the ambitious UNAIDS 90-90-90 target amidst the continuous rise in new HIV infections complicated by HIV-related stigma (patient-level and health services), access barriers [1], and the recent coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that led to the temporary or permanent closure of some health facilities. The topic of ‘missing men and boys’ in the HIV treatment cascade came out strongly as a challenge to HIV prevention strategies during the UN 90-90-90 Target Workshop at the 21st International. AIDS Conference held in July 2016, as well as the 2018 AIDS Conference held in Amsterdam, given the high mortality and morbidity in men and failure to control the epidemic.
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