Publications

This brief explores how the gender dimensions of COVID-19 overlap with and undermine HIV prevention, treatment and care. It outlines what actions are needed to ensure that the responses to COVID-19 are gender-just – that is, promoting gender equity and equal rights for all – and HIV-sensitive: responsive to the priorities of communities most affected by HIV.

UNICEF is releasing our Annual Report 2019 against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic represents a shared global struggle against an invisible enemy. Not only are children and young people contracting COVID-19, they are also among its most severely impacted victims. Unless we address the pandemic’s impacts on children, the echoes of COVID-19 will permanently damage our shared future.

WFP has led the development and finalization of a key document for integrating HIV within the Cluster Response, along with UNHCR and UNAIDS support. The guidance key consideration that affect the HIV response in humanitarian settings, as well as provides key actions that are required for a minimum initial response. Covering health, protection, nutrition, and food security, the guidance document is a comprehensive tool for those working in humanitarian response and fragile contexts.

The ‘Last Mile’ road map draws on the latest scientific research and programmatic evidence to describe and recommend strategies to achieve the elimination of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (EMTCT). It includes a synthesis of evidence and country experiences for reaching EMTCT and recommends clear strategies that can improve the coverage, effectiveness and quality of national programmes for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT). The goal of this document is to provide guidelines for coordinated action so that national programmes address local priority areas to achieve EMTCT in an effective, people-centred, efficient and directed manner.

This technical brief describes how interventions for people who use drugs are to be incorporated into funding requests to the Global Fund. The Global Fund is the major source of international funding in low-and middle-income countries for harm reduction, and it supports evidence-based interventions aimed at ensuring access to HIV prevention, treatment, care, and support for all key populations, including people who use drugs. According to Global Fund policy, lower-middle and upper-middle income countries applying for funding must focus 100% of budget on key populations and 50% of budget on underserved populations, as well as on the highest-impact interventions. Low-income countries are also strongly encouraged to target resources to those at highest risk. It is therefore strongly recommended that all countries with evidence of HIV transmission among people who use drugs include in their proposals harm reduction programs for people who use drugs, both in the general community and in prison and other closed settings.

This technical brief describes how HIV and TB interventions for people in prison and other closed settings can be incorporated into funding requests to the Global Fund. The Global Fund supports evidence-and rights-based interventions aimed at ensuring access to HIV and TB prevention, treatment, care, and support for key populations, including people in prison.

The 63rd session of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs (CND or Commission) took place in Vienna between 4 and 6 March 2020. Incredible as it now seems, held during the early phases of the current global health pandemic, only the precautionary absence of a few full delegations and warnings regarding healthcare counter measures made it feel any different from previous ‘normal’ sessions. Indeed, since this year’s meeting followed on from the Commission’s 2019 Ministerial Segment and multilateral agreement on the associated Ministerial Declaration expectations were relatively low. Indicative of this was the tabling of only five resolutions, around half the number seen in previous years. Nonetheless, as has been increasingly the case the twin issues of complexity and tension were identifiable throughout the week. Put simply, with intricacy, fluidity and dynamism continuing to characterize illicit drug markets has come growing variations in national policy approaches designed to deal with them and attendant inter-state and state-UN system tensions at the international level. 

This framework for evaluation of new immunodiagnostic tests for the detection of TB infection aims to promote and direct research by identifying standard study designs and evaluation protocols. As such it should facilitate their standardized evaluation and accelerate adoption into global and national policy and subsequent scale-up. The focus of this framework is on evaluation of diagnostic performance of tests for TB infection and provides guidance on study design, populations, reference standards, sample size calculation and data analysis. Additionally, it covers technical issues that should be considered when evaluating new tests for TB infection, evaluation of safety for skin tests, costs to the health system patients, preferred features and operational characteristics. The document is intended for test manufacturers, researchers, research funders, regulators, TB programme coordinators, civil society and other stakeholders.

Areas of Africa endemic for Buruli ulcer (BU), caused by Mycobacterium ulcerans, also have a high prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), with adult prevalence rates between 1% and 5%. However, there is limited information on the prevalence of BU–HIV coinfection. Preliminary evidence suggests that HIV infection may increase the risk of BU disease. In the Médecins Sans Frontières project in Akonolinga, Cameroon, HIV prevalence was approximately 3–6 times higher among BU patients than the regional estimated HIV prevalence. Similarly in Benin and Ghana, BU patients were 8 times and 3 times respectively more likely to have HIV infection than those without BU. Further study is needed to clarify this association and enhance knowledge about the prevalence of BU–HIV coinfection in endemic areas.

The purpose of this rapid assessment1 is to investigate the current status of multi-month dispensing (MMD) in 14 countries in the Asia-Pacific region of UNAIDS - Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Vietnam. It aims to determine the current stages of MMD implementation, identify good practices, factors enabling successful MMD implementation as well as barriers and bottlenecks. It will also investigate MMD with regard to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in the two countries where PrEP programming is currently being implemented (Thailand and Vietnam).