Global Health Diplomacy Deborah Birx said this was part of the United State's commitment to gender equality.
Hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive women in sub-Saharan Africa will be screened for cervical cancer.
Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda and Kenya are among 15 countries set to receive a total of $200 million from the US towards combating HIV in young women.
Making the announcement at the Women Deliver Conference in Vancouver last week through the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief website, US Global Aids Co-ordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Diplomacy Deborah Birx said this was part of her country’s commitment to gender equality.
The money, under Determined Resilient Empowered Aids-free Mentored and Safe (Dreams), is part of an overall $2 billion that Pepfar committed globally to combating HIV by preventing mother-to-child transmission, reducing the high incidence of HIV in adolescents as well as supporting vulnerable women such as orphans and widows.
Dreams was founded in 2014 but was implemented in the countries with the highest rates of HIV prevalence among adolescent girls and young women. They included Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The programme embraces research and evidence for interventions in each country ranging from preventive techniques such as teaching girls, as well as economic empowerment.
In 2017, Dreams added Botswana, Cote d’Ivoire, Haiti, Namibia, and Rwanda and brought its total four-year investment to more than $800 million.
“Hundreds of thousands of HIV-positive women in sub-Saharan Africa will be screened for cervical cancer, the leading cancer killer of women on the African continent.”
HIV is a public health challenge in East Africa, especially among the ages targeted by Dreams.
Kenya’s National Aids Control Council estimates that youths aged 15 to 24 contributed to more than 33 per cent of the infections in 2017.
In Uganda, UNAids reports that HIV prevalence is almost four times higher among young women aged 15 to 24 than young men of the same age cluster.
