Formation 2003 | Purpose HIV prevention | |
Region served South India and Northeast States Parent organisation Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation | ||
Avahan is an initiative sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to reduce the spread of HIV in India. It began in 2003. As of 2009 the Gates Foundation had pledged US$338 million to the programme. The programme aims to reduce HIV transmission and the prevalence of STIs in vulnerable high-risk populations, notably female sex workers, MSM, and transgender people, through prevention education and services such as condom promotion, STI management, behaviour change communication, community mobilisation, and advocacy. Avahan works in six states, whilst India HIV/AIDS Alliance is the state lead partner in Andhra Pradesh.
Contents
Founding
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation launched Avahan in 2003 for the purpose of developing a model HIV prevention system in India and promoting others in India and worldwide to adapt and adopt their model.
Strategy
Rather than staffing HIV prevention workers on its own, Avahan provides government health organisations and NGOs with the tools they need to conduct HIV prevention on their own. Avahan's primary prevention techniques include the following:
Communication difficulty
In 2005 an internal report determined that local people and even peer outreach workers had difficulty understanding the nature of Avahan's funded community partners. Specifically, local people had trouble understanding what services Avahan clinics and educators were offering.
Impact
In October 2011 a study published in The Lancet concluded that between 2003-8 in areas where the Avahan project was active the program lowered community rates of HIV acquisition with an increase in protection relative to increased funding per person.