Getting to Zero: Global Social Work Responds to HIV

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Tuesday, March 21, 2017

Getting to Zero: Global Social Work Responds to HIV

With 2030 fast approaching, the goal of ending the world HIV/AIDS epidemic is an ambitious one. Now a new joint publication from the International Association of Schools and Social Work (IASSW) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), gives renewed global focus to the Getting to Zero strategy.

Associate Professor Mark Henrickson, from Massey University’s School of Social Work, served as Editor in Chief, working with a team of editors from every region of the world. The 488-page book provides an unprecedented international snapshot of the HIV/AIDS situation across 18 chapters, covering Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, Ethiopia, Germany, India, Mozambique, Scotland, South Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Ukraine, United States and Zimbabwe.

Dr Henrickson says it is clear HIV is more than a medical condition. “HIV occurs in psychosocial, political and economic contexts that directly shape individual, community and government responses to HIV. Now that new medications have made HIV a manageable, lifelong condition, making those medications available, and assisting individuals and communities to access antiretroviral treatments and prevention technologies is an urgent undertaking. What this book demonstrates is how social workers around the world are taking up that challenge creatively and compassionately.”

When editors first put out a call for contributions they received responses from 68 individuals and partnerships from around the globe, he says. “The editorial challenge was to identify the work that best represents social work responses to HIV that would be most useful to social workers who work with people and communities affected by HIV. Each chapter’s abstract appears in the five languages of IASSW - English, Chinese, Spanish, Japanese and French. German, Portuguese and Ukrainian are also included.”

Dr Henrickson says the book is about much more than social workers responding to AIDS. “It’s a story told with candour, purpose and direction about restoring the hope, dignity and social capital of vulnerable people and families in the face of significant challenges. It’s also about the lived experiences of people affected by HIV and their caregivers, showing us that it is essential to address poverty, inequality and discrimination in order to prevent or manage HIV.”

In the book’s foreword, executive director of UNAIDS Michel Sidibé says no one can tell this story better than social workers. “Social workers are the conscience of the AIDS response. They are peer educators, researchers and decision-makers, and they work at the centre and margins of our communities, with influencers and vulnerable people. Social workers ground our responses to meet the personalised needs of vulnerable people. They accompany people through their life-cycles, connecting them to services and making services work for them.”

By focusing political and financial resources to apply proven scientific tools and approaches, social workers can help a new generation to start free, remain free and stay free of HIV infection, Mr Sidibé says.

The chapters are organised into four groups, following the UNAIDS ‘Getting to Zero’ themes:
Zero new HIV infections
Zero discrimination
Zero AIDS-related deaths
The fourth group includes examples of trans-thinking that is so common among social workers, meaning responses are not limited to a particular zero-theme, or country or level of engagement.

Key facts and statistics:

Guided by UNAIDS’ vision of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero AIDS-related deaths, the world has achieved tremendous progress against HIV over the last 15 years, inspiring a global commitment to end the epidemic by 2030. The United Nations General Assembly agreed in June 2016 that ending the HIV epidemic by 2030 requires a fast-track response to reach three milestones by 2020:

Reduce AIDS-related deaths to fewer than 500,000 globally by 2020
Reduce new HIV infections to fewer than 500,000 globally by 2020
Eliminate HIV-related stigma and discrimination by 2020
 
Remarkable scaling-up of the 90-90-90 treatment target – 90 per cent of people living with HIV know their HIV status, 90 per cent of people who know their HIV-positive status are accessing treatment and 90 per cent of people on treatment have suppressed viral loads - has put the world on track to reach the target on AIDS-related deaths. Intensive efforts to eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV have achieved steep declines in the annual number of new infections among children, from 290,000 in 2010 to 150,000 in 2015.

However, the decline in new HIV infections among adults has slowed, threatening progress towards ending the AIDS epidemic. Since 2010, the annual number of new HIV infections among adults (15 years and older) has remained static at an estimated 1.9 million. Some countries have achieved declines of new HIV infections among adults of 50 per cent or more over the last 10 years, many have not made measurable progress, while others are experiencing worrying increases in new HIV infections.

Global statistics in 2015:
- 17 million people were accessing antiretroviral therapy
- 36.7 million people globally were living with HIV
- 2.1 million people became newly infected with HIV
- 1.1 million people died from AIDS-related illnesses
- 78 million people have become infected with HIV since the start of the epidemic
- 35 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses since the start of the infection  
 
Getting to Zero: Global Social Work Responds to HIV
Editor in Chief – Associate Professor Mark Henrickson (IASSW and Massey University)
UNAIDS liaison with the editorial team - David Chipanta (UNAIDS)
Regional Editors:
Vincent Lynch (North America)
Hernando Muñoz Sanchez (Latin America and Caribbean)
Vimla Nadkarni (Asia)
Tetyana Semigina (Europe)
Vishanthie Sewpaul (Africa and Middle East)

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