ARV prophylaxis and treatment

Multiple agencies and actors have voiced their concerns around the exclusion of pregnant women from clinical trials and the associated harm and risks of these policies. More recently, the importance of allowing pregnant women the opportunity to take part in clinical trials has received renewed attention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Recognizing the urgency of addressing this issue, the IMPAACT Network and WHO held a workshop to refine optimal approaches to studying the safety and efficacy of new HIV-related drugs during pregnancy and to establish the next steps for creating materials and methods that would support the implementation of such studies.

The WHO 2021 guideline promotes the use of optimal antiretroviral treatment (ART) regimens in all populations. Though new, more effective and better tolerated options with a higher genetic barrier to resistance are now available for adults, optimized treatment options for children lag significantly behind. This sixth edition of the Optimal Formulary and Limited-use List supports the transition to optimal WHO-recommended ART regimens for infants and children, while giving due consideration to the rapidly evolving treatment landscape and the risks inherent in the uncertain timelines for pediatric drug development.

Based on the available evidence and success stories such as those cited, more and more countries are scaling-up the implementation of appointment-spacing and MMD. This Standard Operation Procedure (SOP) is designed to help ART service providers in Cambodia implement appointment-spacing and MMD for eligible patients – that is, patients whose condition is determined to be stable – which will reduce the need for frequent visits and help to reduce providers’ workload.

Access to appropriate antiretroviral therapy (ART) is vital to prevent HIV morbidity and mortality, and high ART coverage also promotes HIV prevention by lowering the amount of virus circulating in people within a particular setting or population.

In a setting where prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) is available, HIV-infected women and children did not receive adequate care because of barriers to accessing those services. The results suggest key improvements would be improving quality of counselling and making PMTCT guidelines available to health services.

This issue of Bite Size Briefs is a summary of the Consolidated Guidelines on HIV Prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Care for Key Populations, which was published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in July 2014.

The report provides an overview of the patent landscape with respect to a select number of antiretroviral (ARV) medicines in developing countries as of April 2014.

This paper describes challenges for the implementation of antiretroviral-based prevention and makes the case that TasP and PrEP implementation research in Asia

The paper provides information on the prices paid by 20 middle-income countries for adult and paediatric formulations of antiretroviral treatments recommended by WHO.

Developed by Southern African AIDS Trust, with the support of WHO and UNAIDS, the summary of the the WHO’s New Consolidated guidelines on the use of antiretroviral drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection is now available.