Scaling-up HIV responses with key populations in West Africa.

BACKGROUND: Despite decades of HIV responses in pockets of West and Central Africa (WCA), the HIV response with key populations remains an understudied area. Recently, there has been a proliferation of studies highlighting epidemiologic and behavioral data that challenge attitudes of complacency among donors and country governments uncomfortable in addressing key populations. METHODS: The articles in this series highlight new studies that provide a better understanding of the epidemiologic and structural burden facing key populations in the WCA region and how to improve responses through more effective targeting. RESULTS: Key populations face pervasive structural barriers including institutional and sexual violence and an intersection of stigma, criminalization, and marginalization as sexual minorities. Despite decades of smaller interventions that have shown the importance of integrated services for key populations, there remains incongruent provision of outreach or testing or family planning pointing to sustained risk. There remains an incongruent resource provision for key populations where they shoulder the burden of HIV and their access to services alone could turn around HIV epidemics within the region. CONCLUSIONS: These proximal and distal determinants must be addressed in regional efforts, led by the community, and resourced for scale, targeting those most at risk for the acquisition and transmission of HIV. This special issue builds the knowledge base for the region focusing on interventions that remove barriers to service access including treatment uptake for those living with HIV. Better analysis and use of data for strategic planning are shown to lead to more effective targeting of prevention, care, and HIV treatment programs with key populations. These articles further demonstrate the immediate need for comprehensive action to address HIV among key populations throughout the WCA region.

Testing the limits of case finding for HIV prevention.

HIV testing technologies have been available for two decades, but concerns about stigma and discrimination have historically tempered the application of case finding-a cornerstone of public-health practice-to combat the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The recent expansion of access to HIV treatment has resulted in a shift of emphasis from pairing testing with rigorous risk-reduction prevention counselling, to applying testing to find infected individuals, address their care and treatment needs, and prevent them from infecting others. However, the efficacy of case finding for infectious disease prevention is contingent on two basic principles: the ability to identify infected individuals before further transmission occurs, and the availability of effective strategies to prevent such transmission from taking place. Although there is evidence that specific approaches to HIV counselling and testing can support behaviour change, both high infectivity during early HIV infection and specific sexual network structures could combine to substantially limit our ability to identify cases before ongoing transmission occurs. Facilitating the broader adoption of prevention behaviours therefore remains essential to prevent the continued spread of HIV.

Applying a new conceptual framework to evaluate tuberculosis surveillance and action performance and measure the costs, Hillsborough County, Florida, 2002.

PURPOSE: Tuberculosis (TB) elimination is an important US public health goal and improving the performance of TB surveillance and action and reducing the costs will help achieve it. But, there exists the need to better evaluate the performance and measure the costs. METHODS: We pilot tested an evaluation strategy in Hillsborough County, Florida using a conceptual framework of TB surveillance and action with eight core and four support activities. To evaluate performance, we developed indicators and validated their accuracy, usefulness, and measurability. To measure the costs, we obtained financial information. RESULTS: In 2001, Hillsborough County reported 78 (7%) of the 1145 Florida TB cases. Nineteen (24%) were previously arrested. While 13 (68%) of the 19 were incarcerated during the 2 years prior to being reported, only 1 (5%) of 19 was reported from the jail. From 111 TB suspects, 219 (25%) of 894 sputum specimens were inadequately collected. Of the $1.08 million annual budget, 22% went for surveillance, 29% for support, and 49% for action. CONCLUSIONS: This conceptual framework allowed measurement of TB surveillance and action performance and cost. The evaluation performed using it revealed missed opportunities for detection of TB cases and wasted resources. This conceptual framework could serve as a model for evaluation of TB surveillance and action.