Tools and Guidelines

These consolidated guidelines bring together existing and new evidence-based guidance and recommendations for delivering high-impact HIV testing services, including linkage to HIV prevention and treatment, in diverse settings and populations. A key objective of these guidelines is to encourage greater national and global commitment to implementing effective and efficient HTS as a vital element of the national and global HIV response, essential to achieving and maintaining low HIV incidence.

The aim of the people-centred framework is to help countries to develop fully prioritized and budgeted NSPs based on a culture of making full use of the available data, which are aligned with national planning cycles and which provide the basis for a robust national response that can accelerate progress towards the goal of ending TB. In addition, applying the framework for other possible applications according to the country’s planning and policy cycle encourages the culture of data utilization and evidence translation into decision making and planning.

One important way to mobilise more resources and achieve a greater programmatic impact is by harnessing the full range of assets, capacities and innovations business has to offer – whether they be financial, technical or institutional.  

The LINKAGES project developed a programmatic guide and three training manuals to support the integration of violence prevention and response activities with HIV prevention, care and treatment services in key population programs. The guide contains principles, step-by-step instruction, and sample templates and tools. The three training manuals build the knowledge and skills of health care workers, peer educators and outreach workers, and law enforcement officers to understand, assess, prevent and appropriately respond to violence affecting the lives of individuals. The trainings are interactive and include ideas for adaptation.

These guidelines provide recommendations and good practice guidance on the optimal approach to diagnosing cryptococcal meningitis, strategies for preventing invasive cryptococcal disease through cryptococcal antigen screening and pre-emptive fluconazole therapy, treating cryptococcal meningitis with combination antifungal therapy regimens, preventing, monitoring and managing amphotericin B drug toxicity, recommendations against adjunctive therapy with systemic corticosteroids and recommendations on the timing of antiretroviral therapy (ART) initiation.

WHO guidelines on the use of antiretroviral (ARV) drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection provide a public health approach for scaling up HIV care and treatment programmes and focus on simplified, harmonized and effective antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimens for use in resource-limited settings. In 2013, for the first time, WHO revised and combined guidelines for adults and adolescents, infants and children and pregnant women as well as other ARV-related guidance documents into one set of consolidated guidelines that addressed the use of ARV drugs for HIV treatment and prevention across all age groups and populations, based on the broad continuum of HIV care.

The National Guidelines for HIV Care and Treatment in PNG are one of the many tools that have been developed to provide healthcare workers with guidance on various aspects of care and treatment. In this, the fifth edition of the Guidelines, there is much wider coverage of such areas as; Adult and Pediatric HIV management including adherence issues; Prevention of Parent-to-Child Transmission (PPTCT); Prophylaxis and Treatment of opportunistic infections (OIs); and management of co-morbidities.

Compared with clinical or immunological monitoring, viral load provides an early and more accurate indication of treatment failure. Measuring viral load can help to distinguish between drug resistance and non-adherence when coupled with robust enhanced adherence counselling. Further, viral load can serve as a proxy measure for the risk of transmission and effectiveness of prevention interventions at both the individual and population levels. Increasing scale-up of treatment monitoring approaches through viral load testing as well as infant diagnosis will be critical to ensure high-quality care and treatment as well as programmatic success.

Worldwide, an estimated shortage of 18 million health workers is anticipated by 2030, a record 130 million people are currently in need of humanitarian assistance, and disease outbreaks are a constant global threat. At least 400 million people worldwide lack access to the most essential health services, and every year 100 million people are plunged into poverty because they have to pay for health care out of their own pockets. There is an urgent need to find innovative strategies that go beyond the conventional health sector response.

Given the impact of gender inequality on the sexual and reproductive health of women and girls and the health of women and their children, UN Women developed this programming guide that provides practical guidance and tools to understand the influence of gender inequality on sexual, reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health (SRMNCAH), and how to effectively integrate gender equality into programming. The guide serves as an important resource to complement and build on existing guidance and tools to strengthen gender equality efforts to improve health outcomes for women, children, and adolescents.