Moving ahead on key populations

The WHO Think tank meeting held in Feb 2018 recommended to focus on key populations to reach our goal of ending AIDS by 2030. A number of new guidelines have being released by WHO pertaining to strategic information for HIV and Hepatitis. The countries were recently oriented on these guidelines so as to increase linkage to care and retention in care.  

In 2015, WHO published tools to set and monitor targets for HIV prevention, Diagnosis, Treatment and Care for Key Populations, including new indicators organised along the cascade of HIV prevention, testing, care and treatment.  This was followed in 2016 by WHO Consolidated Guidelines for Key Populations.

In this context, in 2016, the WHO HIV Department in collaboration with UNAIDS and CDC has developed new guidance for HIV patient monitoring and HIV case surveillance and, in collaboration with the University of Oslo, has developed new DHIS 2 applications and tools to support the evolution towards people-centred approaches to the collection and use of strategic information for HIV prevention, testing, care and treatment. 

WHO developed Person centred HIV patient Monitoring and case surveillance Guidelines in 2017 to consolidate HIV patient monitoring and case reporting systems along the continuum of care cascade for HIV and to update all operational tools including patient cards, registers and reporting templates. It provides one single reference for collecting information concerning HIV testing, HIV/TB testing and management, HIV case reporting and surveillance data as well as patient records for ART, PMTCT and links to maternal and child health.