These guidelines aim to address these gaps and limitations. Countries and other end-users have indicated the importance of consolidating WHO’s key population guidance to aid national programme managers and service providers, including those from community-based and community-led programmes, in planning for and implementing services for these populations.

These guidelines present several new recommendations, including the recommendation to provide lifelong ART to all children, adolescents and adults, including all pregnant and breastfeeding women living with HIV, regardless of CD4 cell count. WHO has also expanded earlier recommendations to offer PrEP to selected people at substantial risk of acquiring HIV.

The massive expansion globally of HIV interventions has transformed both the HIV epidemic and the broader public health landscape, demonstrating that the right to health can be realized even in the most trying of circumstances.

The recommendations in this guideline will form part of the revised consolidated guidelines on the use of ARV drugs for treating and preventing HIV infection to be published by WHO in 2016. The full update of the guidelines will consist of comprehensive clinical recommendations together with revised operational and service delivery guidance to support implementation.

The objectives of these guidelines are to provide recommendations outlining a public health approach to managing people presenting with advanced HIV disease, and to provide guidance on the timing of initiation of antiretroviral therapy (ART) for all people living with HIV.

The consolidated guidelines will be reviewed comprehensively every two years to incorporate the key clinical, operational and programmatic implications of new science and emerging best practices across populations, age groups and settings.

Nationally representative surveillance of HIVDR in populations initiating a standard triple-drug ART combination is critical to inform the selection of effective first-line ART combinations, as well as adequate pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) regimens.

This concept note describes methods to assess nationally representative levels of viral load suppression and drug resistance in adults receiving ART through the implementation of a cross-sectional survey.