Towards an actionable One Health approach.

Background: Despite the increasing focus on strengthening One Health capacity building on global level, challenges remain in devising and implementing real-world interventions particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Recognizing these gaps, the One Health Action Commission (OHAC) was established as an academic community for One Health action with an emphasis on research agenda setting to identify actions for highest impact.

Main Text: This viewpoint describes the agenda of, and motivation for, the recently formed OHAC.

Tackling global health security by building an academic community for One Health action.

Background: One Health approach is crucial to tackling complex global public health threats at the interface of humans, animals, and the environment. As outlined in the One Health Joint Plan of Action, the international One Health community includes stakeholders from different sectors. Supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, an academic community for One Health action has been proposed with the aim of promoting the understanding and real-world implementation of One Health approach and contribution towards the Sustainable Development Goals for a healthy planet.

Investment Case for a Comprehensive Package of Interventions Against Hepatitis B in China: Applied Modeling to Help National Strategy Planning.

Background: In 2016, the first global viral hepatitis elimination targets were endorsed. An estimated one-third of the world's population of individuals with chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection live in China and liver cancer is the sixth leading cause of mortality, but coverage of first-line antiviral treatment was low. In 2015, China was one of the first countries to initiate a consultative process for a renewed approach to viral hepatitis.

The Global Fund in China: Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis nationwide programmatic scale-up and challenges to transition to full country ownership.

China has the world's second largest burden of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB; resistance to at least isoniazid and rifampicin), with an estimated 57,000 cases (range, 48,000-67,000) among notified pulmonary TB patients in 2015. During October 1, 2006-June 30, 2014, China expanded MDR-TB care through a partnership with the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria (Global Fund). We analyzed data on site expansion, patient enrolment, treatment outcomes, cost per patient, and overall programme expenditure.

The Potential Impact of Preventive HIV Vaccines in China: Results and Benefits of a Multi-Province Modeling Collaboration.

China's commitment to implementing established and emerging HIV/AIDS prevention and control strategies has led to substantial gains in terms of access to antiretroviral treatment and prevention services, but the evolving and multifaceted HIV/AIDS epidemic in China highlights the challenges of maintaining that response. This study presents modeling results exploring the potential impact of HIV vaccines in the Chinese context at varying efficacy and coverage rates, while further exploring the potential implications of vaccination programs aimed at reaching populations at highest risk of HIV infection. A preventive HIV vaccine would add a powerful tool to China's response, even if not 100% efficacious or available to the full population.

How can we get close to zero? The potential contribution of biomedical prevention and the investment framework towards an effective response to HIV.

Background: In 2011 an Investment Framework was proposed that described how the scale-up of key HIV interventions could dramatically reduce new HIV infections and deaths in low and middle income countries by 2015. This framework included ambitious coverage goals for prevention and treatment services resulting in a reduction of new HIV infections by more than half. However, it also estimated a leveling in the number of new infections at about 1 million annually after 2015.

Transformation of HIV from pandemic to low-endemic levels: a public health approach to combination prevention.

Large declines in HIV incidence have been reported since 2001, and scientific advances in HIV prevention provide strong hope to reduce incidence further. Now is the time to replace the quest for so-called silver bullets with a public health approach to combination prevention that understands that risk is not evenly distributed and that effective interventions can vary by risk profile. Different countries have different microepidemics, with very different levels of transmission and risk groups, changing over time.

The history of antiretroviral therapy and of its implementation in resource-limited areas of the world.

HIV/AIDS not only represents the most severe epidemic in modern times, but also the greatest public health challenge in history. The response of the scientific community has been impressive and in just a few years, turned an inevitably fatal disease into a chronic manageable although not yet curable condition. The development of antiretroviral therapy is not only the history of scientific advancements: it is the result of the passionate 'alliance' towards a common goal between researchers, doctors and nurses, pharmaceutical industries, regulators, public health officials and the community of HIV-infected patients, which is rather unique in the history of medicine.

Antiretroviral therapy in prevention of HIV and TB: update on current research efforts.

There is considerable scientific evidence supporting the use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in prevention of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB) infections. The complex nature of the HIV and TB prevention responses, resource constraints, remaining questions about cost and feasibility, and the need to use a solid evidence base to make policy decisions, and the implementation challenges to translating trial data to operational settings require a well-organised and coordinated response to research in this area. To this end, we aimed to catalogue the ongoing and planned research activities that evaluate the impact of ART plus other interventions on HIV- and/or TB-related morbidity, mortality, risk behaviour, HIV incidence and transmission.

HIV prevention transformed: the new prevention research agenda.

We have entered a new era in HIV prevention whereby priorities have expanded from biomedical discovery to include implementation, effectiveness, and the effect of combination prevention at the population level. However, gaps in knowledge and implementation challenges remain. In this Review we analyse trends in the rapidly changing landscape of HIV prevention, and chart a new path for HIV prevention research that focuses on the implementation of effective and efficient combination prevention strategies to turn the tide on the HIV pandemic.

Evaluation of large-scale combination HIV prevention programs: essential issues.

HIV prevention research has shifted to the evaluation of combination prevention programs whereby biomedical, behavioral, and structural interventions are implemented concurrently to maximize synergies among interventions. However, these kinds of combination prevention packages, particularly when implemented at scale, pose significant evaluation challenges, including how best to determine impact and how and whether to measure the effectiveness of component strategies. In addition, methodological challenges unique to HIV infection such as the absence of a reliable incidence assay, the lack of naive control groups, and no suitable surrogates further complicate rigorous evaluation.

Towards an improved investment approach for an effective response to HIV/AIDS.

Substantial changes are needed to achieve a more targeted and strategic approach to investment in the response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic that will yield long-term dividends. Until now, advocacy for resources has been done on the basis of a commodity approach that encouraged scaling up of numerous strategies in parallel, irrespective of their relative effects. We propose a strategic investment framework that is intended to support better management of national and international HIV/AIDS responses than exists with the present system.

Lives saved by Global Fund-supported HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria programs: estimation approach and results between 2003 and end-2007.

Background: Since 2003, the Global Fund has supported the scale-up of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria control in low- and middle-income countries. This paper presents and discusses a methodology for estimating the lives saved through selected service deliveries reported to the Global Fund.

Methods: Global Fund-supported programs reported, by end-2007, 1.

Global Fund-supported programmes contribution to international targets and the Millennium Development Goals: an initial analysis.

Objective: The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is one of the largest funders to fight these diseases. This paper discusses the programmatic contribution of Global Fund-supported programmes towards achieving international targets and Millennium Development Goals, using data from Global Fund grants.

Methodology: Results until June 2006 of 333 grants supported by the Global Fund in 127 countries were aggregated and compared against international targets for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Making performance-based funding work for health.

Performance-based funding provides powerful incentives to scale up the fight against HIV, TB, and malaria, argues a team of authors from the Global Fund.

Integrating HIV prevention and treatment: from slogans to impact.

Background: Through major efforts to reduce costs and expand access to antiretroviral therapy worldwide, widespread delivery of effective treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS is now conceivable even in severely resource-constrained settings. However, the potential epidemiologic impact of treatment in the context of a broader strategy for HIV/AIDS control has not yet been examined. In this paper, we quantify the opportunities and potential risks of large-scale treatment roll-out.