Home > Projects and Programmes / Project Record 
Search Research Database
Project Record
Research and capacity building in reproductive and sexual health and HIV/AIDS in developing countries
Start Date: 01/07/2005
End Date: 01/06/2010
R Number: HD3
DFID Programme: Reproductive Health and HIV RPC
Funding Department: Research and Evidence Division
Related Documents: View Related Documents
Managing Institute: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
Lead Institute: London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)
Collaborating Institutes: International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF); National Institute of Medical Research, Tanzania; Navrongo Health Research Centre (Ghana) (NHRC); Population Services International (PSI); Reproductive Health and HIV Research Unit, University of Witwatersrand; Social and Public Health Sciences Unit, Medical Research Council (UK)
Contact Names: Director: Dr Philippe Mayaud (LSHTM), Dr John Changalucha (NIMR), Dr Cornelius Debpuur (NHRC), Dr Yaw (Sax) Adu-Sarkodie (KNUST), Professor Helen Rees OBE (Wits), Dr Daniel Wight (MRC), Mr Kevin Osborne (IPPF), Dr Steven Chapman (PSI)
Project URLs:
http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/dfid/aids
Regions: Africa, Asia, Eastern Africa, Northern Europe, South-Eastern Asia, Southern Africa, Southern Asia, Western Africa
Countries: Cambodia, Ghana, India, South Africa, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania
Objectives:
To support a research programme that will strengthen the evidence base to enable policy makers to identify and prioritise interventions that will improve reproductive and sexual health and reduce HIV incidence among economically poor populations in Africa and Asia.
Background:
Reversal of the spread of HIV/AIDS is one of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Failure to achieve this goal will jeopardise other MDGs on poverty eradication, education, and maternal and child health. Success depends critically on improving access to effective interventions for those who are particularly vulnerable to infection (e.g. the poor). Access may be improved and protective behaviour increased through a number of strategies: e.g. mass communication of safe sex messages, together with social marketing of products such as condoms and STI diagnostic tests; provision of integrated SRH and HIV services which decrease stigma and thereby increase uptake; and provision of more effective biomedical interventions which can bring improved diagnostics and preventive technologies to all sections of society. Consortium partners have a long history of working in each of these areas.Intended Outputs:
Strategies for behaviour change.Integration of SRH and HIV services.
New biomedical tools.
Progress and Impact:
- Two large community randomised trials measuring the effectiveness of school-based and peer-led adolescent SRH interventions in Tanzania (Mema kwa Vijana study) and Zimbabwe (Regai Dzive Shiri study) have shown that young people’s knowledge about how to prevent HIV increased, and that these effects were sustained for at least 5 years. However, the interventions did not lead to a reduction in HIV, other STIs or unplanned pregnancies. These results will be important in guiding the future direction of HIV prevention activities for young people. The two studies communicated their results simultaneously in several fora including with national and international policy makers and researchers and have proven very influential in shaping the WHO Adolescent and Child Health Department’s strategies for curbing HIV incidence in young populations.
- A study commissioned by the National AIDS Control Programme in Pakistan, funded by DFID Pakistan and conducted by LSHTM researchers and collaborators from Pakistan shed much-needed light on the health and behaviour of populations often neglected or persecuted, in South Asia and elsewhere. The research has shown that violence, abuse and discrimination are commonly experienced by sex workers and injecting drug users, and can increase the likelihood of HIV and sexually transmitted infections. A future HIV epidemic is likely to be concentrated in those with highest levels of STIs and the highest levels of abuse – transgender sex workers. Our research has also shown that policy recommendations targeted at transgender sex workers will have little support among society, and will be difficult for the government and public sector to implement, but they could be implemented successfully by NGOs, with donor funding and support.
- As a result of our published evaluations which showed that the new point-of-care (POC) diagnostic dipstick tests for syphilis perform well in screening programmes for pregnant women, these tests were made available at discounted prices through the WHO bulk procurement programme. In 2009, a decision was made to use them for antenatal screening in Ghana, and they will now being rolled out nationally to all antenatal clinics in the country. In Tanzania, our results encouraged the government to agree to introduce one of POC test as a demonstration project, which we will evaluate. The Brazilian government has also decided to use them for screening hard-to-access populations in the Amazonas Region, following several evaluations which we conducted in the region.
General Notes:
Read the id21 Research Highlight: Doing it differently? Sexual behaviour around the world and insights 78. Getting research into policy and practice..Total Cost to DFID:
£2,499,760
Aries Code: 112096
MIS Number: 733637011
Paper File Reference:
CRH 0406 1199/1150/021A