Rights in a pandemic – Lockdowns, rights and lessons from HIV in the early response to COVID-19

Rights in a Pandemic outlines 10 immediate areas for action for governments towards building effective, rights-based COVID-19 responses. These include taking proactive measures to ensure that people, particularly people in vulnerable groups, can access HIV treatment and prevention services, designating and supporting essential workers, including community-led organizations, and implementing measures to prevent and address gender-based violence. The report builds on Rights in the time of COVID-19, released by UNAIDS in March 2020, which urged countries to take a human rights approach in responding to COVID-19, in line with best practices from 40 years of responding to HIV.