2025 HIVE Strategic Planning Meeting

Meeting the Moment: Sustaining Vertical Transmission Prevention amid Global Health Uncertainties

Location: Sandton Convention Center, Johannesburg, South Africa
Date: Friday, June 13, 2025

Overview

Background and Rationale

ICAP at Columbia University, in partnership with the Pediatric Adolescent Treatment Africa (PATA), leads the HIV Impact Network for Vertical Transmission Elimination (HIVE). In alignment with the Global Alliance to End AIDS in Children, HIVE focuses on strengthening health systems to eliminate HIV vertical transmission while ensuring high-quality, person-centered care for pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBFW) and their infants. Amid critical funding uncertainty and systemic HIV systems and service delivery disruptions, the need to sustain and accelerate vertical transmission prevention (VTP) efforts is more urgent than ever.
The CQUIN Network will convene a three-day meeting from June 10–12, 2025, aimed at shaping the HIV response in the current funding landscape, sharing country emergency response strategies and best practices towards advancing the path to sustainability. Building on these foundational discussions, the HIVE Strategic Meeting will be held right after this meeting, on June 13th. It will focus intensively on the current status of the VTP program, emphasizing service delivery and monitoring & evaluation system adaptations and linking to country Global Alliance Plans.
This meeting will bring together HIVE partner country Ministries of Health and other government departments, Recipients of Care, and key stakeholders to exchange, refine and fast-track targeted VTP interventions.

Meeting Objectives

 The HIVE strategic planning meeting aims to:

    • Highlight innovations and country-led solutions that enhance prevention, identification, linkage, retention, and improved health outcomes for PBFW and their infants across the VTP cascade.
    • Define priority activities to mitigate service disruptions through the remainder of 2025 and beyond, amid funding changes and service disruptions.
    • Strengthen partner country emergency responses by focusing on the VTP cascade and synergizing with Global Alliance plans and activities.
    • Foster collaboration among governments, implementers, communities, and partners to advance sustainable and coordinated action plans for VTP.

Building on shared priorities across the HIVE network, this one-day meeting will serve as a platform to share challenges and adaptations during this emergency response period and strengthen coordinated support across the VTP cascade. The meeting will focus on the following critical areas:

    1. Identification and Linkage: Strengthening early identification of PBFW living with HIV and ensuring rapid linkage to HIV care and treatment services.
    2. HIV Prevention for PBFW: Expanding access to and uptake of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to prevent HIV acquisition among PBFW.
    3. Early Infant Diagnosis (EID) and Postnatal Prophylaxis (PNP): Enhancing the timely EID testing and ensuring appropriate PNP for HIV-exposed infants to reduce the risk of vertical transmission.
    4. Continuity of Care: Supporting uninterrupted HIV care and antiretroviral treatment for PBFW, and their infants, across the VTP cascade.

Monitoring and Evaluation for Elimination of Vertical Transmission: Advancing robust M&E frameworks to track progress toward vertical transmission elimination targets. This includes strengthening data systems and ownership, enhancing cohort monitoring, ensuring timely and accurate reporting of key indicators, and promoting the use of data for continuous quality improvement at all levels of the health system for PBFW and their infants.

Participants
Approximately 50 participants will convene to discuss the VTP response including Ministry of Health focal persons for VTP, HIV program managers, M&E leads and differentiated service delivery coordinators from HIVE network countries. Additionally global stakeholders and teams from ICAP and PATA, and representatives of communities and networks of HIV recipients of care will participate in the discussions.

Agenda Framework

The meeting will be structured around interactive panels, data-driven presentations, and cross-country dialogue, ensuring that the voices of recipients of care are at the forefront of discussions. Tentative agenda blocks include:

  • Opening and framing the day: Where do we stand in the efforts to eliminate vertical transmission?
  • Country Spotlights: Short presentations from countries on adaptations, challenges, and innovations across VTP priority areas
  • Technical Discussions: Breakout sessions across VTP core priority areas, including M&E of VTP
  • Synthesis & Forward Planning: Summarizing insights and action steps for the remainder of 2025 and priority technical assistance areas.

Expected Outputs

  • Country emergency response action plans with a focus on VTP programs, highlighting strategic priority shifts.
  • A succinct synthesis of the meeting, summarizing learnings, country innovations, and shared priorities

Contact Information

For more information, please contact: