With an HIV prevalence rate of 12 percent, Zambia receives significant support from USAID under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). These PEPFAR investments focus on scaling up integrated HIV prevention, care, and treatment programs with the goal of reaching epidemic control by 2020. USAID’s District Coverage of Health Services (USAID DISCOVER-Health) project partners with Zambia’s Ministry of Health to implement HIV prevention and treatment, family planning, and maternal and child health programs. 

Active in densely populated peri-urban and rural communities across 28 districts, USAID DISCOVER-Health helps provides comprehensive HIV and other health services at clinics, health posts, hospitals, and prisons to achieve the 95/95/95 objectives, which are:

• Ensuring that 95 percent of HIV positive individuals know their HIV status;

• Initiating 95 percent of those who tested positive on Antiretroviral Therapy (ART); and

• Ensuring that 95 percent of those on ART are virally suppressed.

Other objectives include:

• Reaching 90 percent of eligible HIV-positive adults and children with nutrition, assessment, counseling, and support (NACS);

• Ensure biomedical prevention through: 

  • Voluntary medical male circumcision and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to priority populations to avert new infections
  • Institutionalize cervical cancer screening and treatment services for HIV infected women
  • Prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV
• Strengthen the health system to support the objectives of 95/95/95; and,
• Increase access to and quality of family planning services.

In select districts, DISCOVER-Health also serves as an implementing partner for the Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS- Free, Mentored, Safe (DREAMS) initiative. DREAMS is a PEPFAR-driven initiative designed to prevent new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women (AGYW), ages 10-24, across ten countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Girls and young women account for 74 percent of new HIV infections among youth in sub-Saharan Africa, and nearly 1,000 AGYW are infected with HIV every day.

Social isolation, poverty, discriminatory cultural norms, orphanhood, gender-based violence, and inadequate schooling all contribute to girls’ vulnerability to HIV and a life not lived to its full potential. DREAMS goes beyond typical health initiatives to address these factors, working toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goal of ending AIDS by 2030. Under DREAMS, USAID DISCOVER-Health works with five other implementing partners to reduce HIV incidence among AGYW.  As part of the DREAMS package of services, USAID DISCOVER-Health also provides community-based Pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) to girls and young women at highest risk of contracting HIV. 

JOURNEY TO SELF-RELIANCE

USAID believes every person, every community, and every country wants to be empowered to lead their own future. We support self-reliance by walking alongside our friends on their development journey, as evolving but enduring partners. As partners on this journey, we are empowering host country governments and our partners to achieve locally-sustained results, helping countries mobilize public and private revenues, strengthening local capacities, and accelerating enterprise-driven development. This approach fosters stable, resilient, and prosperous countries that are more self-reliant, and prioritizes enduring partnerships.