The WHO End TB Strategy aims to end the global TB epidemic by 2030, in alignment with Goal 3 of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Member States of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN committed to ending the TB epidemic through adoption of WHO’s End TB Strateg...y and the UN SDGs in 2014 and 2015, respectivel
Almost half of the deaths worldwide caused by TB in 2019 occurred in the WHO South-East Asia Region, home to around a quarter of the global population. Maintaining robust progress in this Region is therefore essential if the global goal of ending the TB epidemic is to be realized. Despite substantial gains made in the Region, the threat to
health worldwide posed by the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to reverse these gains and eclipse the focus on the global TB emergency.
While continuing to tackle COVID-19-related challenges, countries will need to rapidly and urgently deploy supplementary measures to address the large numbers of missed cases, poor treatment outcomes and, potentially, a higher TB burden.
The Regional Strategic Plan towards Ending TB in the Region 2021–2025 clearly articulates priority interventions, analyses the challenges, bottlenecks and opportunities, and focuses on implementation considerations in the Region.
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The National Tuberculosis Programme (NTP) of Rwanda (known as TB & ORD Division/IHDPC/RBC) is preparing to write their next National Strategic Plan and for this reason Rwanda was selected as a country to received technical assistance (TA) to conduct an assessment of their surveillance system using t...he surveillance checklist as input for the new strategy. This TA was provided under the USAID TBCARE I Core project on Monitoring and Evaluation, Operational Research and Surveillance (C7.08) developed a surveillance checklist with the objectives to assess a national surveillance system’s ability to accurately measure TB cases and deaths and to identify gaps in national surveillance systems that need to be addressed in order to improve TB surveillance.
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Integrated Management of Adolescent and Adult Illness (IMAI)
July 2008
This World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) joint guidelines production aims at harnessing the contribution of employers and workers towards the control of TB. It covers all the practical steps involved in establishing TB control activities, including (for la...rge employers) starting and running a workplace TB control programme. They are intended for use in all countries in which TB incidence is high and the target audience for the guidelines includes employers, employee organizations, NTP managers, and agencies providing technical support for TB control.
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A wide spectrum of disease severity has been described for Human African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) due to
Trypanosoma brucei rhodesiense (T.b. rhodesiense), ranging from chronic disease patterns in southern countries of East Africa to an increase in virulence towards the north. However, only limited d...ata on the clinical presentation of T.b. rhodesiense HAT is available. From 2006-2009 we conducted the first clinical trial program (I MPAMEL III) in T.b. rhodesiense endemic areas of
Tanzania and Uganda in accordance with international standards (ICH-GCP). The primary and secondary outcome measures were safety and efficacy of an abridged melarsoprol schedule for treatment of second stage disease. Based on diagnostic findings and clinical examinations at baseline we describe the clinical presentation of T.b. rhodesiense HAT in second stage patients from two distinct geographical settings in East Africa.
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In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the world beyond imagination. To date, it has infected more than 135 million people, killed over 2.9 million people, and is projected to plunge up to 115 million people into extreme poverty.1 As countries have gone into lockdown, gender-based violence has incr...eased, unemployment has soared, and access to health care for the poorest and most vulnerable has been cut. COVID-19 has made people less likely to seek health care because they are afraid of getting infected with the virus. Fear and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 have also increased stigma and discrimination. As frontline workers without enough access to personal protective equipment (PPE) risk their lives to treat patients, the virus pushes already fragile health systems to the brink.
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These consolidated guidelines on HIV testing services (HTS) bring together existing and new guidance on HTS across different settings and populations.
The World Health Organization (WHO) first released consolidated guidelines on HTS in 2015, in response to requests from Member States, national pr...ogramme managers and health workers for support to achieve the United Nations (UN) 90–90–90 global HIV targets – and specifically the first target of diagnosing 90% of all people with HIV. In 2016, based on new evidence, WHO released a supplement to address important new HIV testing approaches – HIV self-testing (HIVST) and provider-assisted referral.
Since the release of 2015 and 2016 HTS guidelines, new issues and more evidence have emerged. To address this, WHO has updated guidance on HIV testing services. In this guideline, WHO updates recommendation on HIVST and provides new recommendations on social network-based HIV testing approaches and western blotting (see box, next page). This guideline seeks to provide support to Member States, programme managers, health workers and other stakeholders seeking to achieve national and international goals to end the HIV epidemic as a public health threat by 2030.
These guidelines also provide operational guidance on HTS demand creation and messaging; implementation considerations for priority populations; HIV testing strategies for diagnosis HIV; optimizing the use of dual HIV/syphilis rapid diagnostic tests; and considerations for strategic planning and rationalizing resources such as optimal time points for maternal retesting
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STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURES
PARTICIPANT GUIDE
This Participant Guide has been designed to assist health facilities and community based non-clinicians to develop skills to provide linkage to care, adherence and retention in care services for chronic conditions
Tokar et al. Health Research Policy and Systems (2019) 17:23 https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-019-0415-4
The WHO South-East Asia (SEA) Region bears a high burden of tuberculosis (TB) and MDR-TB. In 2015, the Region accounted for nearly 200 000 or 35% of the global estimated new RR/MDR-TB cases eligible for treatment. Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDRTB) has also been reported from s...ix countries of the SEA Region. MDR-TB could potentially replace drug-susceptible TB, and constitutes a threat to global public health security. The South- East Asia Regional Response Framework for DR-TB 2017–2021 complements the Ending TB in the South-East Asia Region: Regional Strategic Plan 2016–2020” and outlines key strategies for reducing morbidity, mortality and transmission of DR-TB.
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