Leaving No Man Behind: Improving HIV Services for Men

Over the past decade, the South African government has made progress in tackling HIV, and now provides over three million patients with access to life-saving antiretroviral therapies (ARTs). Nearly seventy percent of the recipients are women. In May, I had the opportunity to discuss this gender disparity with Dr. Lynne Wilkinson outside the Ubuntu Clinic in Khayelitsha, South Africa – an impoverished township of Cape Town. Dr Wilkinson is the Project Coordinator for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)-Khayelitsha and according to her, men are being left behind. In response, MSF is piloting a new approach to improve male access to HIV services, with potential lessons for other areas with HIV high-prevalence.