Achieving UNAIDS 90-90-90 Targets Among Adolescents in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Is School-Based Comprehensive Sexual Education Effective?

Jacques B. O. Emina , University of Kinshasa

Comprehensive school-based sexuality education (CSE) has been advocated as an important tool for supporting young people to avoid negative reproductive health outcomes, including STIs/HIV. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has been implementing CSE since 1970. The study uses data from 1,247 sexually active students enrolled in 192 schools in Kinshasa. Analyses revealed that out of the 1,247 students who ever had sexual intercourse, 26% reported condom use during the last sexual intercourse, 27% ever got an HIV test among which only 15% know their HIV status. Less than 1% of participants knew the four mean of HIV transmission. These indicators are far from the 90% UNAIDS target by 2020. We argue that noncompliance in the implementation of CSE, unavailability of trained teachers, lack of manuals, and absence of strong monitoring systems as well as religious beliefs and traditions constitute barriers to achieve the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets by 2020.

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 Presented in Session 2. Children & Youth