Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention represents a fundamental shift in the way in which people living with HIV are involved in the HIV response:
- It calls for leadership by people living with HIV, including those from key populations.
- It transforms the concept of access to services, from a simple biomedical model to a holistic approach to meeting the needs of people living with HIV and their families in their communities.
- It puts the person living with HIV in the centre, and calls for a comprehensive set of actions – at policy and service delivery levels – that take into consideration the individual’s lived environment.
- It recognises the importance of meeting not only the person’s clinical needs but also their health needs and to protect their human rights.
Positive Health, Dignity and Prevention was developed for and by people living with HIV based on numerous consultations. at the global, regional and national levels. It articulates the next stage in the HIV response, where people living with HIV are at the centre and services offered in an environment that is supportive to meet all the needs of people living with HIV and their families. Instead of being regarded by “positive prevention” programmes as mere recipients of care and vessels of a virus that needs to be contained, people living with HIV embrace a new paradigm where they are actively involved as part of the solution to the epidemic and not seen as part of the problem.
These guidelines articulate actions that can be taken at country level to reach the 2011 United Nations Political Declaration on HIV and AIDS: 15 million people on treatment, reduce sexual and drug-use related transmission of HIV by 50%, and stop new infections among children by 2015.
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