The National Guidelines for HIV-1 Viral Load Laboratory Testing support plans to scale up viral load (VL) testing to reach the 90-90-90 targets in India. This phased scale-up includes the setup of 70 additional VL testing laboratories nationally. These guidelines include laboratory design considerat...ions, a summary of VL technologies, and specimen collection and handling as well as transportation and storage guidance. Quality control and quality assurance requirements are described as well as laboratory safety issues. The guidelines also describe the VL laboratory network to be developed with supply chain management issues and commodities described. Annexes include laboratory registers and reporting forms.
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July 2018
This fourth edition of the Unitaid/WHO market and technology landscape: HIV rapid diagnostic tests for self-testing report summarizes the current HIV testing gap; the challenges facing efforts to scale up; and the potential role HIV self-testing (HIVST) could play to achieve the United... Nation’s 90-90-90 targets. In particular, the report synthesises the existing and emerging market demand and supply of kits.
The information in this report is intended for manufacturers, donors, national programmes, researchers and other global health stakeholders who are exploring the potential role of HIVST.
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This guidance addresses rationale, risk-based scenarios, practical considerations prior to adoption of the self-testing products, quality assurance, safety and ethical considerations, and data management considerations for COVID-19 self-testing. The Africa CDC recommends the use of rapid antigen sel...f-testing within two key scenarios. The first includes testing for case identification within scenarios with a high risk of infection, including symptomatic cases and contacts of a confirmed case. The second scenario involves general screening within scenarios of low or unknown risk exposure allowing for self-care such as before gatherings with at-risk individuals and prior to participation in events involving members of different households. Within these scenarios, a positive test result indicates likelihood of current infection, while a negative test result indicates a lower risk of active infection, though it does not rule out infection altogether. All positive cases should be managed following the national COVID-19 management protocol of Member States.ssur
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The checklist and reference list has two parts: high-level cross-cutting content (Part A) and specific programme content (Part B). Part A applies to all countries and contains situation and response analysis, the NSP development process, the goal, targets and priority-setting of the NSP and the prin...ciples of human rights and gender equity and sustainability. Part B comprises the programme requirements of prevention, treatment and care, comorbidities and integration, social protection, health systems, community engagement, human rights and gender equity, efficiency and effectiveness, governance, management and accountability, HIV and the humanitarian response
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The Ministry of Health through the National AIDS Secretariat, has developed the Strategic Operational Plan for Condom Programming in Sierra Leone with a focus on reinvigorating condom use to ensure “uninterrupted access to male and female condoms and lubricants for Key Populations, young people an...d the general population.” Condom use in the country was estimated at 7 per cent and 23 per cent of women and men respectively who had sexual intercourse with non-regular partners. The primary goal of the strategic operational plan is to enhance access and utilization of male and female condoms, supporting national efforts to reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), including HIV, and unintended pregnancies, for all sexually active individuals.
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The World Health Organization organized a Consultation of National Leprosy Programme managers, partners and affected persons to discuss the draft Global Leprosy Strategy, 2021--2030. This virtual event took place from 26 to 30 October 2020. It was attended by more than 450 stakeholders. Contribution...s were shared through 70 presentations made by stake holders from all Regions. The presentations covered the key strategic approaches: global context, challenges in countries, contact tracing and post exposure prophylaxis, disability care, interruption of transmission and elimination of disease, stigma and d iscrimination, research. In addition to numerous comments received through the chat box and by email, the conclusions and recommendations of this Consultation will guide finalizing the post 2020 Global Leprosy Strategy.
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The steps are presented in a user-friendly guidebook, designed to be a working resource for implementers and leads in infection control, safety, and quality.
This report, published in conjunction with a summary overview of results of rounds 1–8, is the eighth and final report in a series of laboratory-based evaluations of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria. It provides a comparative measure of their performance in a standardized way to distingui...sh between well and poorly performing tests.
These results constitute the laboratory evaluation component of the WHO prequalification process for malaria RDTs and inform the current WHO procurement recommendations. In round 8, 35 RDTs from 17 manufacturers were assessed. For the first time the evaluation included an assessment of product performance against a panel of P. falciparum parasites with pfhrp2/3 gene deletions and therefore not expressing HRP2.
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