Over the past decade, adolescent sexual and reproductive health concerns have increasingly been on national agendas. For many countries, this concern has been driven by the high prevalence of HIV/ AIDS among young people. In other countries, a central concern has been early childbearing; and still others have focused predominantly on sexual behaviours among adolescents. Today’s youth generation is the largest in history: nearly half of the global population being less than 25 years old. Young people are at the centre of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. An estimated 10 million young people aged 15-24 years are living with HIV/AIDS and more than 6000 contract the virus every day. Due to high prevalence of HIV among the youth aged 15-24 years; various governments have diverted their strategies to emphasize on social behavioural change other than the focus on curative and hospitalization measures. Youth, even when aware of HIV risk, often do not consider this risk and stay with steady partners. Ethiopia is among the highly HIV/AIDS infected and affected countries with 790000 HIV patients in the world in general and the region in particular. As is the case elsewhere in Africa, transmission is almost exclusively through heterosexual contact. A large proportion of new HIV infection is occurring in young people less than 25 years old.

Citation: Bayissa ZB, Negara E, Tolesa G, Kefale B (2015) Factors that Influences School Youth Exposure to HIV/AIDS, in Mettu Town, South West Ethiopia. J Community Med Health Educ 5:339.

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