PATA 2022 SUMMIT
The recently concluded Paediatric – Adolescent Treatment Africa (PATA) 2022 Summit is aligned with the newly formed Global Alliance to end AIDS in children by 2030, and is titled “Ending AIDS in Children, Adolescents and Young People – a Roadmap to 2030,” themed on uniting to Do it Right, Do it Together, Do it Now!
People from across the world – Scientists, Policy-makers, Advocates/Activists, Donor organizations, and other relevant stakeholders, including Adolescents and Young People (AYP) themselves, participated from the 21st to the 23rd of November across 26 satellites in 13 sub-Saharan African countries via the PATA Linking and Learning Hub for the PATA 2022 Summit.
The Summit supports the Global Alliance’s four pillars for collective action, which are:
- Closing the treatment gap for pregnant and breastfeeding adolescent girls and women living with HIV and optimising continuity of treatment.
- Preventing and detecting new HIV infections among pregnant and breastfeeding adolescent girls and women.
- Accessible testing optimised treatment, and comprehensive care for infants, children, and adolescents exposed to and living with HIV.
- Addressing rights, gender equality, and the social and structural barriers that hinder access to services.
PATA 2022 three-day programme was structured to provide those on the frontline of service delivery with the opportunity to access global guidance and technical input while also allowing policymakers and stakeholders to engage with everyday operational barriers in service delivery to close the policy-to-practice and the know-do-how gap while advancing the 2030 agenda.
On the summit’s opening day, reflections on data on the global HIV response from UNIAIDS showed that the progress of PATA’s goals has faltered amidst COVID-19, conflicts, shrinking resources, and other global crises. The number of people on HIV treatment increased in 2021 more slowly than in over a decade.
