AIDS in the time of COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic arose nearly 40 years after the advent of the global AIDS pandemic. The implications of COVID-19 for global health were immediately apparent, and wide-ranging measures were set in motion to limit its spread — notably by imposing restrictions that disrupted social and economic life. It was clear at the time that impacts of this rapidly evolving pandemic would disrupt the response to HIV, and had the potential to reverse many hard-won gains. There were lessons from the response to AIDS that could be applied to containing COVID-19. 

African Journal of AIDS Research Volume 21, 2022, Issue 2 is an Open Access special issue and is titled, “AIDS in the time of COVID-19”. The special issue brings together the work of scholars, researchers and policymakers who provide important insights into the intersections between COVID-19 and HIV. 

Importantly, this has been made possible through a partnership with the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) that builds on the understanding that responses to COVID-19 and HIV have shaped each other, that new and important nuances and insights have emerged, and that these must be preserved in published form. 

The articles in this special issue are divided broadly into two categories — one, a global and multi-country lens, and two, the experiences on the ground at country level and can be accessed by clicking HERE.

African Journal of AIDS Research its publishers NISC (Pty) Ltd and the editors of the issue, Charles Birungi , Warren Parker & Alan Whiteside, are delighted to present this special issue. “This issue represents one of the ways we are adaptive, and we would like to thank everyone who was involved in the process, especially the endlessly patient publishing team at NISC. We are particularly grateful for the financial support of UNAIDS that made it possible to publish and disseminate this special issue. It is not farfetched to assert that we seem to have entered an era of pandemic,” said the Editors of the Special Issue. 

Download a PDF of the whole Special Issue.