Tools and Guidelines

ART training manual has been prepared for medical personnel (Medical doctors, Health Assistants, Staff nurses and other HIV/AIDS care providers) who had taken basic HIV training. The training manual is developed to train and built capacity of doctors, nurses, health assistants and other HIV/AIDS care providers working in public as well as private health institutions in the region to diagnose and manage HIV and HIV-related diseases, including opportunistic infections (OI). Improving care for OIs and HIV-related conditions is a critical component of HIV programs.

Due to social and biomedical advances, and increased funding, the response to HIV globally has yielded remarkable results. There are better, improved tools for screening, diagnostics, and treatment of HIV. Community responses to HIV are also established as the cornerstone of effective, equitable and sustainable HIV programmes. People living with HIV, or at increased risk of HIV play a critical role in demanding and delivering services, supporting systems for health, and reaching those who are most vulnerable to HIV, where state facilities cannot, or are not equipped to do so.

The Health Sector Plan (HSP) HIV Prevention and Control Operational Plan 2018 - 2020 is a product of a series of consultations and participatory processes involving HIV program managers, representatives of the key populations (KP) communities, support civil society organizations (CSO), and the HIV Technical Working Group (TWG). These stakeholders are working from the national, regional, and local levels. The guidance of the National AIDS, STI Prevention and Control Program (NASPCP) and the Epidemiology Bureau (EB) was pivotal in crafting a realistic three-year HIV operational plan.

People living with HIV are 29 times (26–31) more likely to develop tuberculosis (TB) disease compared with people without HIV and living in the same country. TB is a leading cause of hospitalization and death among adults and children living with HIV, accounting for one in five HIV-related deaths globally. This Regional Response Plan for TB-HIV 2017–2021 is a product of wide consultation with national and regional partners. It is intended to provide strategic directions to countries on prioritizing interventions and setting reasonable targets. It will guide how interventions can be further expanded and made efficient by strengthening health systems, and improving coordination and synergy to ensure universal access and equity.

This handbook has been written by a group of patients in British Columbia. We all have long experience with medication-assisted treatments for opioid dependence. The language about drug use is complex. The latest version of the manual that defines diseases and disorders (DSM-V) no longer refers to “dependence” and uses “addiction” instead. In this handbook, we continue to use “dependence” to refer to our experience of “needing the drug” and significant withdrawal symptoms when trying to quit or cut down on our use.

The World Health Organization End TB Strategy is fully aligned with the framework of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Both require due attention to equity, human rights and ethics. In fact, “protecting human rights, ethics and equity” is one of the four key principles of the WHO End TB Strategy. The SDG agenda itself is inspired by a simple motto: “Leave no one behind”. Ensuring that these essential principles guide the implementation of the End TB Strategy is a must, especially when tuberculosis (TB) is rampant among the most vulnerable and marginalized populations everywhere in the world. The goal of this guidance document is to assist those working towards ending TB in the 21st century by proposing practical answers to key ethical questions and enabling patients, families, civil society, health workers and policy makers to move forward and address current challenges. This TB ethics guidance can then inform difficult decision-making processes by providing recommendations and serving as a basis for further analysis of complex ethical challenges.

This document is a tool to assist countries in strengthening systems for national monitoring and evaluation (M&E) of HIV and sexual and reproductive health (SRH). This tool is intended to be used, first and foremost, by monitoring and evaluation and/or health information management officers involved with national HIV or SRH M&E systems, as well as in SRH or HIV programmes at the sub-national level (for example, at the district level, individual projects, community-based programmes, nongovernmental organization (NGO) programmes and interventions). However, it may also be relevant to other stakeholders who are familiar with the basics of M&E and who use HIV or SRH data for advocacy and for decision-making for policy and programmes (for example, researchers, academics, advocates and policy-makers).

The manual was developed to provide planners and managers working with HIV men who have sex with men (MSM) programme prevention and support services with the necessary information to develop sympathetic, evidence-based and comprehensive HIV prevention and support services for MSM in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The resource is useful to both experienced programme implementers as well as those who are beginning to plan new HIV prevention and care services for MSM.

This module is focused on: - developing an enabling environment for programme implementation through partnership development and advocacy - mapping - reviewing the different components of an effective programme - the importance of developing effective referral mechanisms - how to develop indicators to measure progress and monitor programme outputs the importance of supervision - programme documentation - reflecting on an ethical framework to guide programme implementation.

In this module, participants learn and practise the skills necessary to work with their clients to promote and encourage behaviour change. This will include exploring their own attitudes and beliefs in order to reflect on how these may influence their work with clients, both positively and negatively.