Reinforcing the Scaling Up of HIV Services: Strengthening HIV Prevention and Effective Targeting

Program goal: To reduce new HIV infections and deaths among men, women, children and neonates in the next 3 years

Strategies:

Target HIV care and prevention efforts in four high priority regions which have 58% of the country’s population, and where HIV prevalence is more than twice the national figure. These regions also include 75% of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Ghana as a whole. The four regions also contain the hot spots for female sex workers (FSWs) and men who have sex with men (MSM);
Promote the adoption of safer sexual practices among FSWs; and
Strengthen and fund community systems (CSS) to improve prevention, access to care and follow up among affected populations, and assign individual civil society organizations (CSOs) to support program implementation.

Planned activities:

Strengthen the capacity of CBOs, community volunteers, support groups, and community leaders to reduce gender inequality;
Target known FSW hotspots nationwide, and identify new ones with HIV prevention information and services;
Conduct Behavior Change Communication and Information, Education and Communication using various media;
Distribute male and female condoms among key populations, vulnerable groups, and the general population;
Expand Counseling and testing (CT) sites and integrate CT with Sexual Reproductive Health;
Reduce stigma and discrimination through continuous assistance to law enforcement agencies, civil society human rights organizations, and health workers to ensure the rights of key populations and PLHIV are respected; and
Conduct community outreach through peer educators and in school settings.

Target Group/Beneficiaries: