Outbreaks of disease in settings affected by crises grow rapidly due to late detection and weakened public health systems. Where surveillance is underfunctioning, community-based surveillance can contribute to rapid outbreak detection and response, a core capacity of the International Health Regulations. We reviewed articles describing the potential for community-based surveillance to detect diseases of epidemic potential, outbreaks, and mortality among populations affected by crises.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The period 2006-2009 saw intensive scale-up of HIV prevention efforts and an increase in reported safer sex among brothel and street-based sex workers in Mumbai and Thane (Maharashtra, India). Yet during the same period, the prevalence of HIV increased in these groups. A better understanding of sex workers' risk environment is needed to explain this paradox.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In the last decade, community mobilisation (CM) interventions targeting female sex workers (FSWs) have been scaled-up in India's national response to the HIV epidemic. This included the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation's Avahan programme which adopted a business approach to plan and manage implementation at scale. With the focus of evaluation efforts on measuring effectiveness and health impacts there has been little analysis thus far of the interaction of the CM interventions with the sex work industry in complex urban environments.
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