According to the report, experts have identified male attitudes and behaviors, intergenerational sex, sexual violence, stigma, the lack of openness and the shortage of consistent condom usage in long-term multiple concurrent partnerships as significant drivers of the epidemic.

    Underlying these drivers are social and structural factors such as high population mobility, wealth inequalities, cultural factors and gender inequality that make young women especially vulnerable to HIV infection, said experts at a think tank meeting on HIV Prevention in High-Prevalence Countries in Southern Africa.

    The meeting was attended by 38 representatives and experts from regional research and prevention institutions and non-governmental organizations.

    They analyzed the evidence of the drivers in the sub-region, focusing especially on sexual transmission of HIV and made recommendations that will accelerate prevention efforts in the coming one to two years.

    The recommendations included the exploration of possibilities of mass campaign or social movement to expose and discourage multiple partnerships as a threat to individual and public health and continuing to advocate delayed sexual debut as well as consistent and correct use of male and female condoms, especially in the situations with higher risks

    The experts and participants also called on the SADC secretariat to support facilitating the harmonization of national HIV/AIDS strategic plans including on HIV prevention, strengthen the capacity of prevention experts, accelerate the establishment of a regional resource center, develop a database of resource persons and institutions for HIV prevention in the region, and back the sharing of emerging information on HIV prevention among the SADC members.

    The SADC region is at the epicenter of global HIV epidemic. According to the latest estimates by the Joint UN Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), about 15 million people in the SADC region are living with the disease and the average adult HIV prevalence rate is about 11 percent compared to one percent globally.

    It is estimated that among the people with HIV in the world, approximately 40 percent are living in the SADC region and almost37 percent of new infection cases occurred in this region last year.

    The World Food Programme said that many people in southern Africa are simply too ill or too young to work on the land or earn an income.

    Being concerned about the continuing deterioration of the epidemic and in support of the Year for Accelerating Access to HIV Prevention, the SADC secretariat with the support of the HIV Prevention agencies such as the UNAIDS, World Health Organization and the UN Children's Fund, convened the three-day think tank meeting ahead of the SADC summit scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Lesotho's capital Maseru. Enditem