Identifying and Addressing Delivery Considerations and Best Practices

• Clinical guidelines are directions for health-care practitioners to provide PrEP. These guidelines are succinct recommendations that detail the testing, counseling, and other clinical steps required for PrEP use in each country.
  WHO consolidated Guidelines on Antiretroviral Drugs for Treating and Preventing HIV Infection: What’s New, November 2015

Health care workers need adequate training on how to enroll PrEP users, considerations for delivery, adherence and issues surrounding stigma. Training tools reinforce core messages such as who should be offered PrEP and how to counsel potential users.

• PrEP training curriculum in South Africa
• Click here for oral PrEP training materials for providers

Health providers are the gate-keepers for PrEP—and for many other health interventions. It’s essential to invest in research on the knowledge, attitudes, behavior and practices (KAPB) of providers to understand how to select and train effective, well-prepared PrEP providers. This information may be available or may be gathered via a KABP survey and can be used to design training programs tailored to the specific needs and issues raised by providers.

• KAPB Literature Review and Analysis
• KAP Literature and Survey Analysis
• KAP Literature Review and Current Studies

There is a strong emphasis on ensuring that people living with HIV are linked to ART after receiving a positive test result. People who test HIV-negative and are at risk for HIV should likewise be linked to effective prevention. This includes voluntary medical male circumcision, PrEP, male and female condoms and other targeted tools. PrEP programs will place new demands on testing programs. Individuals need a confirmed HIV-negative test before initiating PrEP and need to be re-tested periodically while taking PrEP.

Assessing national and sub-national testing programs for strengths and challenges that might impact PrEP delivery is key. You will need to determine the infrastructure and human resource needs for the HIV testing requirements associated with PrEP. In many instances, local community-based organizations and healthcare facilities will be instrumental to providing HIV testing for the clients of PrEP programs.