Tools and Guidelines

These Guidelines on the management of latent tuberculosis infection were developed in accordance to the requirements and recommended process of the WHO Guideline Review Committee, and provide public health approach guidance on evidence-based practices for testing, treating and managing LTBI in infected individuals with the highest likelihood of progression to active disease. The guidelines are also intended to provide the basis and rationale for the development of national guidelines. The guidelines are primarily targeted at high-income or upper middle-income countries with an estimated TB incidence rate of less than 100 per 100 000 population. Resource-limited and other middle-income countries that do not belong to the above category should implement the existing WHO guidelines on people living with HIV and child contacts below 5 years of age.

Gender-based violence is among the greatest protection challenges individuals, families and communities face during humanitarian emergencies. Accounts of horrific sexual violence in conflict situations—especially against women and girls—have captured public attention in recent years. These violations and less recognized forms of gender-based violence—intimate partner violence, child marriage and female genital mutilation—are also being committed with disturbing frequency. Natural disasters and other emergencies exacerbate the violence and diminish means of protection. And gender-based violence not only violates and traumatizes its survivors, it also undermines the resilience of their societies, making it harder to recover and rebuild. Despite the scope and severity of the problem, current programming to prevent gender-based violence and provide support for survivors is insufficient to deliver the desired results. The newly-revised Interagency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines for Integrating Gender-Based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Action: Reducing risk, promoting resilience and aiding recovery are designed to address this gap, with clear steps the humanitarian community can take to protect people from gender-based violence.

The strategies and action plans developed through consultations build on an increasing collaboration between the government and the civil society organizations, linking the facility-based health services with community level service provision by lay workers, and ensuring the quality of these services through extensive training and capacity building of the community-based organizations and service providers. Ensuring continuum of care between medical and paramedical health facility-based staff and outreach workers requires extensive training in new skills for these workers to be able to perform expanded tasks, adequate support by the health facility staff and smooth referral arrangements.

Implementing PrEP poses new challenges in planning, managing and funding combination prevention. Realizing the promise of PrEP will require governments, funders, civil society and other stakeholders to join forces to systematically address them–licensing antiretroviral medicines for PrEP use, setting priorities for locations and populations for implementation, making services user-friendly and ensuring adherence. These efforts are worthwhile based on their contribution to achieving the global targets of less than 500 000 people annually acquiring HIV in 2020 and the end of AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to national AIDS programmes and partners actively involved in the country response to AIDS on use of core indicators to measure and report on the national response. These guidelines have been developed to help countries collect data and report on their national HIV response as effectively as possible. In the section “Core indicators for Global AIDS Response Progress Reporting” readers will find pages devoted to each indicator, giving reasons for inclusion and methods for collecting, constructing and measuring the indicator. The indicator’s strengths and weaknesses are also discussed.

Language shapes beliefs and may influence behaviours. Considered use of appropriate language has the power to strengthen the global response to the AIDS epidemic. That is why the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) is pleased to make these guidelines to Preferred terminology freely available for use by staff members, colleagues in the Programme’s 11 Cosponsoring organizations and other partners working in the global response to HIV. These guidelines are a living, evolving document that is reviewed on a regular basis. This revision of the 2011 edition has discarded a few terms and added new ones that are relevant to the global response to HIV and commonly used by UNAIDS. The same terms, grouped by subject headings, also are listed at the end of this document.

Through this guide, Unzip the Lips aims to promote the engagement of Key Affected Women and Girls, (KAWG) community networks and NGOs with the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The goal is to advocate for the needs and rights of these groups, and to ensure that their sexual reproductive health and rights are respected, protected and fulfilled. In this guide, you will learn about the purpose of CEDAW. You will also learn about why and how to engage with this international agreement to further the sexual and reproductive health and rights of KAWG. This guide provides concrete information regarding your rights, and how to claim them at a national level.

The Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP) is a series of crucial actions required to respond to reproductive health needs at the onset of every humanitarian crisis. The MISP is not just kits of equipment and supplies; it is a set of activities that must be implemented in a coordinated manner by appropriately trained staff.

Among the communicable diseases, sexually transmitted infections (STI) remain major causes of morbidity and mortality. Yet, many STI-related illnesses and complications are preventable with feasible and effective interventions and services. Continuous collection of timely and accurate data on STI incidence and prevalence are crucial for understanding the epidemiology of STIs, monitoring interventions and informing treatment guidelines. Moreover, these data also provide useful markers of the sexual transmission of HIV and can be used to assess the effectiveness of STI/HIV prevention programmes.

The Statement of Action is the product of a preceding WHO TB Consultation held in Addis Ababa on 11 to 13 November, 2015. The consultation brought together 90 NGOs and other CSOs, along with national TB programmes and donors, to dialogue and share best practices, innovative approaches, challenges and opportunities in their community-based activities within and beyond TB care and health. The participants explored concrete ways in which they could work together, alongside governments and other partners, to ensure effective implementation of the WHO End TB Strategy. The meeting agenda was also informed by detailed inputs from 400 NGOs and other CSOs who participated in an advance online consultation.