Haiti

2022 was a uniquely challenging year for Haiti, seeing a reversal of decades of development gains, due to a continuously deteriorating socioeconomic, political and insecurity context, under escalating gang violence. Hence, the Joint Team actively supported the continuity and expansion of HIV and sexual and reproductive health services for all.

Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT), syphilis, and hepatitis B services also considerably improved through support from the Joint Team (UNICEF, WHO). For instance, three departments of the North region introduced Hepatitis B screening as part of the integrated PMTCT and maternal, newborn and child health services. In Great South Region, a newly established network with 28 government health facilities ensured the integration of these services. Further supporting these advances, mothers’ clubs were formed in three camps for internally displaced people which helped to sensitize 120 pregnant women on PMTCT and family planning. More than 50 young volunteers and members of SOJER, a non-profit association of young people, received training on PMTCT and family planning, and sensitized 329 young people (UNICEF).

In commemoration of 2022 World AIDS Day, a prevention campaign in the South-East Department reached 500 adolescent and young people, of whom 200 people received voluntary HIV and STI screening. Through this campaign, sex workers, people from the LGBTI community and out-of-school adolescents and young people from marginalized neighbourhoods also accessed family planning, condoms, HIV testing and referral to treatment services (UNFPA). A total of 500 women and girls were tested for HIV via mobile clinics in the municipality of Cité-Soleil in Port-au-Prince, which has been greatly affected by gang violence since spring 2022, through a collaboration with the nongovernmental organization Médecins du Monde Argentina (UNICEF).