Worldwide World Health Organization Strategy for the Prevention and Evaluation of HIV Drug Resistance - Estrategia mundial de la OMS para la prevención y la evaluación de la farmacorresistencia del VIH

In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) brought together experts and institutions that work in the sphere of HIV drug resistance with the objective of forming the WHO HIVResNet (the Global HIV Drug Resistance Network), a worldwide network of individuals, institutions, and countries that advise the WHO in the areas of design and practice related to a public health strategy of prevention and evaluation of HIV drug resistance.

With the support of this group, the WHO drafted a global strategy to reduce the appearance and transmission of HIV drug resistance that includes generic protocols and informational technical documents.

The objective of this initiative is to prolong and optimise the quality of life of people living with HIV by supporting the optimal functioning of anti-retroviral treatment programme, the maintenance of the practical efficiency of the first- and second-line conventional anti-retroviral guidelines used in developing countries, and the possible reduction of HIV transmission.

The strategy recommended by the WHO provides orientation to nations related to the following activities:

• Establish working groups on HIV drug resistance in each country under the responsibility of the Ministries of Health, in coordination with the National AIDS Counsels.
• Make monitoring the degree of functioning of the  antiretroviral treatment administration centres a maximum priority and establish Early HIV Drug Resistance Warning Indicators (EWI). 
• Conduct surveys to monitor the prevention of HIV drug resistance and associated factors at anti-retroviral treatment front-line centres that are representative of local populations.
• Conduct surveys to evaluate transmitted HIV drug resistance (also called threshold surveys), confined to geographic zones where transmitted HIV drug resistance might first be detected: cities or health planning zones where anti-retroviral therapy has been administered in a generalised form for more than three years.
• Create a national database to store HIV drug resistance data (some data will become part of the regional and worldwide HIVResNet databases of the WHO).
• Ask national working groups on HIV drug resistance in charge of coordinating the WHO-recommended surveys to designate a national or regional genotypic lab accredited by the WHO to provide trustworthy final survey results.
• Establish an examination of the HIV drug resistance prevention activities that are done in each country established using Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) guidelines.
• Ensure that national HIV drug resistance working groups write annual reports on all aspects of the strategy and circulate these reports.