Access to medical personal protective equipment (PPE) is essential for routine healthcare delivery, and a critical tool for containing outbreaks, as well as preventing and responding to pandemics. It is one of our most effective tools against COVID-19, and an undervalued tool more generally in infec ... tion control. more

The World Health Organization and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria are part of a group of agencies working together to accelerate progress towards the health-related SDGs through the Global Action Plan for Healthy Lives and Well-being for All. Understanding patterns of inequal ... ities in these diseases is essential for taking strategic, evidence-informed action to realize our shared vision of ending the epidemics of HIV, TB and malaria. This report presents the first comprehensive analysis of the magnitude and patterns of socioeconomic, demographic and geographic inequalities in disease burden and access to services for prevention and treatment. The results confirm there have been improvements in service coverage and decreased disease burden at the national level over the past decade. But they also reveal an uncomfortable reality: unfair inequalities between population subgroups within countries are widespread and have remained largely unchanged over the past decade. For some disease indicators, inequalities are even worsening. Moreover, the report points to the persistent lack of available data to fully understand inequality patterns in HIV, TB and malaria. Collecting data to improve the monitoring of inequalities in these diseases is vital to develop targeted responses for impact. There are, encouragingly, isolated successes in reducing inequities. Change is possible when deliberate action is taken to reach disadvantaged populations. more

While many of the countries hit by the COVID-19 in the first few months of the year are now beginning to relax lockdown measures as infection and death rates fall, in the regions most affected by HIV, TB and malaria, such as Africa, South Asia and Latin America, the pandemic continues to accelerate. ... In lower resource settings, lockdowns are less effective and hard to sustain, and clinical care facilities are extremely limited. In such environments, the response to COVID-19 must focus on containing the pandemic’s spread as far as possible through testing, contact tracing and isolation, protecting the health workforce through training and the provision of personal protective equipment (PPE) and minimizing the knock-on impact on other diseases through shoring up fragile health systems, and adapting existing disease programs. more