The continuing role of communities affected by HIV in sustained engagement in health and rights.

Introduction: The meaningful involvement of persons affected by a disease is a unique aspect of the HIV response that places people living with (PLHIV) and those directly affected by HIV (peers) at the centre of the design, development and implementation of service delivery and research and policy making. The principle of greater involvement of PLHIV (GIPA) has and will increasingly ensure equitable access to services and engagement of marginalized groups in the HIV response, and to health services more broadly. This paper describes the history, current place in the HIV response and potential future role of PLHIV and communities in health responses.

Community-Led Monitoring: When Community Data Drives Implementation Strategies.

Purpose Of Review: Communities occupy a central position in effective health systems, notably through monitoring of health service quality and by giving recipients of care a voice. Our review identifies community-led monitoring mechanisms and best practices.

Recent Findings: Implementation of community-led monitoring mechanisms improved service delivery at facility-level, health system-wide infrastructure and health outcomes among recipients of care.

Community and activists demand for tenofovir/emtricitabine or lamivudine/dolutegravir and routine viral load testing.

Purpose Of Review: Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, informed communities have demanded and fought for access to life-saving treatment. The last several years have seen interesting developments in this area - particularly with respect to the switch to dolutegravir (DTG)-based regimens and scale-up of routine viral load testing (RVLT), and how these directly and indirectly impact issues of treatment optimization, HIV drug resistance, and sexual and reproductive health. In this review, we present recent advances in antiretroviral treatment and monitoring in the context of how treatment education and community demand for them.