Many people get infected with HIV, with the World Health Organization estimating that about one in four of all new HIV infections is among youth aged 13 to 24 years.
It has thus been estimated that in 2021, about 1.71 million adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 were living with HIV worldwide.
HIV can pass from a mother to her child during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding. This is called perinatal transmission of HIV.
In the United States, this is the most common way children under 13 years of age get HIV.
This perinatal transmission of HIV is which is sometimes also called mother-to-child transmission of HIV.
The use of HIV medicines and other strategies have been seen to give a greater help in terms of lowering the rate of perinatal transmission of HIV to infants.
The major traditional activities that lead to the transmission of HIV through processes such as genital mutilation, as per Unicef which estimates that it has affected over 130 million girls across the world.
This process exposes young women to infection.
In addition, these women are more prone to contracting HIV due to the greater surface area of skin which is exposed.
Young women are often forced into risky situations due to poverty.
This leads them into commercial sex to pay for their basic needs.
They are even unable to negotiate for safer sex due to lack of experience or maybe fear of losing their potential clients.
With the rates of HIV infection among the sex workers population becoming very high, it is estimated that 75 per cent of youths who are sex workers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Kenya were HIV positive.
This is according to research by UNAIDS.
The families who are devastated by HIV/AIDS, especially orphans are left without support, which in turn makes them more vulnerable to HIV through lack of sex education.
Unfortunately, some turn to sex work and others turn to crime and drug abuse.
This even makes them more vulnerable to getting infected with HIV/AIDS.
Drug and alcohol abuse are also to blame for the spread of HIV/AIDS among teenagers.
The Kenyan National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse says drug and alcohol abuse leads to risky sexual behaviours.
Most of them after abusing the drugs, cannot control themselves and do not remember to put into place any protection measures.
Such behaviour then contributes to more HIV infections.
Today there are more tools to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Young people need to abstain from premarital sex, avoid sharing needles and use protection methods in the right way.
In case an HIV-negative person is exposed to HIV through sex or injection, they can use prevention medicines such as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP).
For those living with HIV, there are many measures they can take to stay safe and protect their partners.
Student at Rongo University
Edited by Kiilu Damaris
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