Burkina Faso

In 2022, the Joint Team supported Burkina Faso in building capacity, developing guidance and empowering vulnerable communities to improve HIV prevention, testing and viral load monitoring services in the country. HIV testing guidelines were revised to guide HIV testing programmes (WHO), and procurement of point-of-care equipment, community outreach, service promotion campaigns and client follow-up programmes increased access and uptake of early infant diagnosis services for HIV-exposed children (UNICEF). Standard operating procedures on pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) have also been adopted to support PrEP programme implementation, data collection and monitoring in line with global standards (WHO).

Burkina Faso successfully transitioned all eligible people living with HIV to Dolutegravir-based antiretroviral treatment (ART), rolled out multimonth dispensing of ART and implemented the 2021 roadmap for viral load testing expanding treatment and viral load testing services in all regions through technical and financial support from the Joint Team. The establishment of community-based HIV service delivery systems also empowered communities to actively participate in decision making, planning, implementation, and monitoring of HIV programmes, including differentiated HIV testing and treatment services (UNICEF, WHO, UNAIDS Secretariat).

To improve access and quality of comprehensive sexuality education, teacher’s training modules were developed and integrated into existing training programmes while a pool of 210 trainers and 525 schoolteachers were capacitated to provide family life education. As part of the zero pregnancy, zero gender-based violence, zero child marriage (3Z) approach, 2798 schools in Central Plateau and Central West regions received technical support to ensure inclusive protection of vulnerable girls through synergy and optimal participation of adolescent and young people. This included training of 100 supervisory trainers and 300 teachers on the 3Z approach which benefited 2798 school directors, 11 192 representatives of parents' associations, associations of mothers’ educators and school management committees, as well as 195 860 parents and 106 533 learners, including 2924 pupils with disabilities (UNESCO).