Guidelines for the Prevention and Treatment of HIV in arrested, detained & sentenced persons

These guidelines have been developed to aid in the provision of appropriate and quality care for prisoners living with or at risk of HIV infection in detention facilities in southern Africa.

HIV is an everyday reality within southern African detention facilities. Providing prisoners with access to effective and appropriate prevention and treatment services is an essential component for the control of the dual pandemics of tuberculosis (TB) and HIV.

Consequently, correctional services and other related departments throughout southern Africa are facing mounting pressure to provide better health care for prisoners. In response to this pressure, nineteen heads of correctional services from all over Africa – meeting in Swaziland at an All African Symposium on Corrections in August 2007 – agreed to work together to address key challenges facing African prisons. Among other major challenges, they identified overcrowding, HIV/AIDS and inadequate medical care.

[Excerpt taken from the Introduction of this article]

The Guidelines were first published in the Autumn 2008 issue of the Southern African Journal of HIV Medicine and are published here in full with the kind permission of the journal’s editor.