Attachments
West and Central Africa lags behind the world’s other regions in many key HIV indicators for children, adolescents and mothers. Coverage of both paediatric antiretroviral treatment and early infant diagnosis were estimated to be below 30 per cent in 2018, access to antiretrovirals to reduce mother-to-child transmission has stalled and the annual number of adolescents newly infected with HIV has stopped declining. Priority approaches in the region include integrating HIV testing and treatment within routine maternal and child health programmes; strengthening community approaches, including family-based HIV testing of children; and scaling up point-of-care technology for early HIV infant diagnosis and dual HIV/syphilis testing to primary health care levels.