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The more than $1.3 billion the United States government has spent to encourage abstinence and fidelity among Africans in the last 10 years has done little to change sexual behavior and curb the spread of HIV, a recent study determined.
Nathan Lo, a second-year student at Stanford School of Medicine, came to this conclusion after a year-long analysis of international survey data collected between 1998 and the present that included information about the age people had sex for the first time, rates of teenage pregnancy, and the number of sexual partners. Nearly two dozen African countries were featured, the majority of which received funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR.
While the study challenged a conservative notion that sexual education centered on abstinence could quell the spread of HIV on the Motherland, former and current affiliates of PEPFAR remain reluctant to acknowledge Lo’s findings, citing a need to further examine his research before making a comment.
This recent news, however, represents a shift in thinking among health experts about how to best combat the spread of HIV/AIDS that has been years in the making.
Read more here. (Think Progress)
Nathan Lo, a second-year student at Stanford School of Medicine, came to this conclusion after a year-long analysis of international survey data collected between 1998 and the present that included information about the age people had sex for the first time, rates of teenage pregnancy, and the number of sexual partners. Nearly two dozen African countries were featured, the majority of which received funding from the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR.
While the study challenged a conservative notion that sexual education centered on abstinence could quell the spread of HIV on the Motherland, former and current affiliates of PEPFAR remain reluctant to acknowledge Lo’s findings, citing a need to further examine his research before making a comment.
This recent news, however, represents a shift in thinking among health experts about how to best combat the spread of HIV/AIDS that has been years in the making.
Read more here. (Think Progress)