Inclusion of adolescent girls in HIV prevention research - an imperative for an AIDS-free generation.

Recent scientific advances centred on the use of anti-retrovirals (ARVs) – both prophylactically to prevent HIV acquisition (pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP) and for treatment to minimize onward transmission (treatment as prevention, or TasP) – have led to a new-found optimism for control of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the possibility of creating an “AIDS-free generation”. In order to translate this optimism into reality, large and sustained reductions in incident HIV infections are required. Several models have projected that with substantial programmatic scale-up of the new prevention agenda, such requirements can be satisfied. However, these models typically assume a uniform efficiency for interventions in reducing incident infections across populations, and neglect to consider their current unavailability to a key population driving the epidemic at its epicentre: adolescent girls. (Published: 8 March 2014) Citation: Abdool Karim Q and Dellar R. Journal of the International AIDS Society 2014, 17 :19075 http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/19075 | http://dx.doi.org/10.7448/IAS.17.1.19075