A new report, The AIDS 2009 Epidemic Update, by UNAIDS and WHO reveals that the majority of new HIV and AIDS infections in sub-Saharan Africa are among older heterosexual couples. 

This is in spite of the fact that the number of new HIV infections around the world has dropped by 17% in the past eight years.

Universal access?

Rachel Albone, HIV and AIDS Policy Adviser at HelpAge International says:

“This year the theme of World AIDS Day 2009 is universal access and human rights. Despite the target of universal access, the response to HIV and AIDS around the world rarely includes older people.

“As the 2009 AIDS report highlights, few prevention programmes specifically focus on older adults. The report’s data shows progress towards achieving the target still focuses largely on the 15-49 age group.

“This means older people continue to be neglected in the HIV and AIDS response. It also perpetuates the myth that HIV is simply a young person’s disease that doesn’t affect older people. It does.
 
“Studies show that older people are less likely than younger people to practice safe sex, one reason being perhaps that the threat of pregnancy has gone. This indicates that older people need different types of prevention education to young people.

Contributions left unrecognised

“Older people are not only living with and affected by HIV. Like other population groups, they suffer stigma and discrimination and rights abuses because of their own HIV status or that of their family members.”

“In addition, millions of grandparents around the world, and specifically in Africa, are caring for their sick adult children and orphaned grandchildren. 

“The huge contribution these older carers make to the response to the HIV and AIDS epidemic remains largely unrecognised, and is not addressed in this new report,” said Albone.

Stigma and abuse

HelpAge works globally with older people’s groups that daily witness the discrimination that accompanies HIV and AIDS.

In Tanzania, older women are accused of witchcraft if a member of their family has HIV. These women are ostracised from their communities and subjected to violence and even death.

In Vietnam, injecting drug users account for more than 50% of recorded HIV and AIDS infections.  Older people face the dual stigma of having children that use drugs and are living with HIV.  Many keep their children’s HIV status a secret for fear of how people will react and how they will be treated.

In Uganda, older men and women suffer abuses of their inheritance rights as a result of HIV and AIDS. Younger family and community members claim older people’s land as their own and try to remove them from their homes, sometimes using threats and physical force.

Many of these older people care for orphaned children. If they lose their homes, they have nowhere to live and no land to farm for food for themselves or their grandchildren.

Time to include older people

Rachel Albone concludes:

“HelpAge International is very clear what needs to be done.
UNAIDS must address this specific issue in 2010. Any new targets and commitments made in the HIV and AIDS response in 2010 must meaningfully include older people in recognition of the impact HIV and AIDS has on their lives.”

Go to our World AIDS Day 2009 photo gallery