More than 12 million men in sub-saharan Africa have said yes to comprehensive HIV services.
Photo Credit: Jhpiego
Finding and engaging men in HIV prevention, care, and treatment is critical to reaching HIV epidemic control by 2030. Overall, fewer men than women seek HIV testing; fewer men who are HIV-positive are on treatment; and fewer men on treatment are virally suppressed. These three factors -- testing, treatment, and viral suppression -- make up the HIV clinical cascade, and USAID works to advance efforts to find, reach, and engage men across the cascade. In 2018, PEPFAR co-founded the MenStar Coalition, a client-centered public-private partnership that seeks to initiate more men living with HIV on life-saving treatment. USAID is part of the interagency group implementing the MenStar Strategy, which set out to reach an additional one million men with HIV treatment and ensure 90 percent of men tested become virally suppressed.
USAID continues to scale up data-driven approaches to identify programmatic gaps and provide support to efforts of finding and engaging men through its HIV prevention and treatment programs and services.
USAID Impact
USAID works to better understand the root causes and structural barriers to engaging men in HIV prevention and treatment, and applies evidence-based, tailored interventions to better serve this population to achieve epidemic control. USAID/OHA supports innovative approaches to deliver appropriate and effective HIV/AIDS services for men, increasing their rapid uptake of HIV testing, linkage to and continuation in HIV treatment, and achievement of viral suppression. This includes:
- Expanding testing options for men (e.g., self-testing, evening clinic hours)
- Offering multi-month dispensing of antiretroviral therapy
- Supporting male-friendly sites and services (e.g., extended clinic hours, clinical staff sensitized to the needs of men and boys)
- Improved treatment literacy and increase demand for services
- Providing prevention services including PrEP and VMMC
- Exploring how to better reach partners of DREAMS beneficiaries
- Aligning with key populations programming in order to reach male clients of female sex workers
2022 Achievements
PEPFAR has exceeded the goals in the MenStar Coalition’s first two years, reaching 1.9 million additional men with treatment and helping 92 percent of them achieve viral suppression, effectively preventing their transmission of the virus to others.
- As part of the work to find and engage men, USAID newly enrolled 86,093 men ages 20+ on antiretroviral treatment in FY22.
- Additionally, 95 percent of men with a reported viral load test in USAID-supported programs were virally suppressed.
- Globally (excluding South Africa), 83 percent of men ages 15 and up in USAID’s HIV treatment program benefited from multi-month dispensing, an important client-centered approach to improving treatment retention, and received three or more months of life-saving HIV antiretroviral treatment.