Publications

The aim of carrying out the National Behavioural Surveillance Survey (BSS) was to assess current risk behaviour in specific population groups in India and to develop a database to measure behavioural changes from National BSS 2001 to National BSS 2006. The present report would provide the detailed findings of BSS 2006 conducted among two high-risk population groups of IDUs and MSM, about their awareness, knowledge, attitude, and behaviour with regards to STD/HIV/AIDS.

Behavioural Surveillance Surveys (BSS) are internationally standardised tools used for understanding the knowledge, attitude, and behaviour of populations. Undertaking BSS among youth is an important effort by NACO and UNICEF to monitor changes in behavioural aspects of young people who are vulnerable to HIV infection. The study aims to provide a baseline for the interventions among the young people supported by NACO and UNICEF. The study will be repeated periodically for trend analysis, which will indicate the impact of the interventions as well as generate invaluable information about the behaviour and lifestyle of young people in the country.

In Cambodia, sentinel surveillance data have been used to estimate national HIV prevalence and project trends in HIV and AIDS incidence and mortality. In 2006, Cambodia conducted its tenth round of HIV sentinel surveillance (HSS) in 22 of its 24 provinces and municipalities. The two sentinel groups surveyed were brothel-based female sex workers (FSWs) and pregnant women attending antenatal care (ANC) clinics.

The Samoa Family Health and Safety Study (SFHSS) is a component of the larger Pacific Multi-site Study of the Effects of Violence Against Women on Family Health and Safety, which is a joint research initiative of the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). The Multi-site study follows the methodology of the World Health Organization (WHO) Multicountry Study of Women's Health and Domestic Violence, and uses questionnaires based on those developed by WHO.

On the first World TB Day of the new millennium, ministerial representatives of the 20 countries carrying 80 percent of the global tuberculosis (TB) burden adopted the Amsterdam Declaration to Stop TB. By adopting the Declaration, these governments pledged to take bold new steps in addressing the TB epidemic in their countries and affirmed their commitment to “implement, monitor and evaluate” their national TB programs according to the TB con- trol strategy recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

Approximately 123,000 Cambodians aged 15-49 are estimated to be living with HIV. An additional 12,000 (approximately 10% of the total) are children under the age of 15.2 The provision of antiretroviral treatment (ART) to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) is a relatively new phenomenon in Cambodia. The National Strategic Response to HIV was, until 2004, primarily focused on HIV prevention thought VCCT and health education. But the advent of high level funding from the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria (GFATM) has drawn attention to the need to expand and support ART services. The Cambodian National Strategic Response to HIV/AIDS has a clearly articulated Continuum of Care (CoC) to provide HIV treatment to PLHA. The CoC has a particularly strong community component within it, but children with HIV are not currently encompassed within this structure. The Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative is committed to supporting the government of Cambodia to expand pediatric HIV/AIDS care in Cambodia as outlined in the Memorandum of Understanding between CHAI and the Ministry of Health. This concept paper is a first step to try and achieve that goal.

With a view to facilitating the scaling up of access to antiretroviral therapy, and in line with a public health approach, this publication outlines recent revisions WHO has made to case definitions for surveillance of HIV and the clinical and the immunological classification for HIV-related disease. HIV case definitions are defined and harmonized with the clinical staging and immunological classifications to facilitate improved HIV-related surveillance, to better track the incidence, prevalence and treatment burden of HIV infection and to plan appropriate public health responses. The revised clinical staging and immunological classification of HIV are designed to assist in clinically managing HIV, especially where there is limited laboratory capacity. The final revisions outlined here are derived from a series of regional consultations with Member States in all WHO regions held throughout 2004 and 2005, comments from public consultation and the deliberations of a global consensus meeting held in April 2006.

China's AIDS epidemic began in the early 1980s as a localized epidemic among needle-sharing intravenous drug users along the border with Myanmar in China’s Yunnan Province. HIV infections are now found in all of China’s 31 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions, with new infections growing at an estimated rate of 30% annually since 1999 and 44% in 2003 (Wu, Rou, and Cui 2004). The epidemic has been unfolding for at least a decade and accelerating for the last few years (Kaufman and Jing 2002), and a narrowing window of opportunity exists to avert a much larger epidemic.

The challenges posed by HIV have progressed inexorably during the past decade, especially for young people in developing countries. At the same time, many lessons have been learnt about developing and implementing programmes for young people’s health and development, including programmes to prevent the spread of HIV. In 2004, the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team on Young People decided that it was time to review the progress that had been made and to look again at the evidence for the effectiveness of interventions, focusing explicitly on interventions to prevent the spread of HIV among young people in developing countries. This report is an attempt to rise to the challenge by providing systematic reviews of the evidence for policies and programmes to decrease HIV prevalence among young people, as a contribution towards achieving universal access to prevention, treatment and care (7) and attaining the Millennium Development Goal on AIDS (8).

Stigma-AIDS is a time-limited, global forum on HIV- and AIDS- related stigma and discrimination. The forum is managed by Health and Development Networks (HDN), working together with the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the Global Network of People Living with HIV/AIDS (GNP+) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) on the IFRC global campaign against HIV/AIDS-related stigma and discrimination: ‘The Truth About AIDS. Pass it on...’, launched in 2002. The objective of the forum is to provide a place where knowledge, experience and practical solutions about stigma and HIV can be discussed and shared among people from all regions.