30 Jun Africa REACH Attends the Annual ViiV Healthcare Breakthrough Partnership Meeting in Cameroon.
From 3-5 June 2025, Africa REACH joined regional and global partners in Yaoundé, Cameroon, for the annual ViiV Healthcare Breakthrough Partnership Meeting. The gathering brought together stakeholders dedicated to ending HIV in children and adolescents and strengthening health systems across sub-Saharan Africa.
The event featured insightful discussions, collaborative planning and learning exchanges on how to advance equitable and effective HIV programming in priority countries.
Objectives
The meeting aimed to:
- Share updates and achievements across country, regional and global levels to strengthen programming.
- Reflect on challenges in 2025 and identify operational improvements.
- Refine working modalities and improve partner coordination.
- Enhance stakeholder alignment around advocacy, service delivery, monitoring and learning.
- Develop a strategic vision for the Breakthrough Partnership for 2026 and beyond
- Deepen understanding of collaboration and the patient journey through site visits to health facilities.
Key Takeaways
The gathering started with site visits to Breakthrough Partnership-supported facilities, including Mbankomo District Hospital, St. Therese Catholic Hospital and Mbanjock District Hospital. Africa REACH visited St. Therese Catholic Hospital and engaged with young mothers living with HIV, highlighting how stigma reduction and community engagement are central to effective service delivery.
During the advocacy session plenary, Africa REACH stressed the importance of leveraging African Union instruments such as the recently endorsed AU Roadmap to 2030 & Beyond, to inform HIV policies. This roadmap is an African-led blueprint endorsed by all 55 AU member states to guide health system strengthening, disease control, and health security.
Discussions also centred on:
- Strengthening community-led monitoring and engagement with networks of people living with HIV.
- Using data (quantitative and qualitative) to identify programming gaps and inform decisions about where to expand or transition support.
- Improving coordination to reduce duplication and enhance impact.
- Integrating HIV services into broader universal health coverage strategies and multi-sectoral frameworks
- Stigma integration into all other advocacy and programmatic work was mentioned in numerous conversations throughout the meeting.
- On age of consent advocacy:
Partners agreed to delve deeper into advocacy around lowering the age of consent for HIV testing and sexual and reproductive health services in countries where legal thresholds remain high, despite data showing that new HIV infections and adolescent pregnancies disproportionately affect younger age groups. This work will focus on aligning national policies with evidence, while ensuring protections for adolescents.
Who Attended?
The meeting convened representatives from:
- ViiV Healthcare Positive Action.
- Africa REACH.
- Paediatric-Adolescent Treatment Africa (PATA).
- Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF).
- Aidsfonds.
- UNICEF.
- Ministries of Health from Cameroon and other participating countries.
- Breakthrough Partnership Country Leads from Tanzania, Uganda, Mozambique, Nigeria and Cameroon.
- Community-based organisations and technical partners.
Next Steps…
Partners identified several priorities for the coming year, including:
- Enhancing community engagement through networks of people living with HIV and local gatekeepers.
- Increasing the use of real-time data to improve program design and visibility.
- Prioritising adolescent prevention, PMTCT, and district-level capacity building.
- Strengthening integration of HIV services within primary health care and broader health systems.
Africa REACH will continue supporting advocacy to ensure African-led frameworks like the AU Roadmap guide national HIV responses and accountability efforts.