The Multi-Country Western Pacific Integrated HIV/TB Project aims to improve the coverage and quality of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and tuberculosis (TB) prevention, treatment and care in 11 participating Western Pacific countries.

The project includes prevention initiatives for key populations, prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT), HIV, Sexually transmitted infections (STI) and TB prevention, treatment and care services, addressing TB/HIV coinfection and multi-drug resistant TB, removing legal barriers to access and community systems strengthening.

The US$14.2 million project will run from 1 July 2015 to 31 December 2017 through Ministries of Health, regional partners and community-based organizations.

Resilience-building is a key element of UNDP’s work in countries where it acts as an interim principal recipient of funding from the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria. UNDP provides extensive implementation support services that are complemented by longer-term capacity building, which includes strengthening financial and risk management, procurement systems for health commodities, monitoring and evaluation, and health governance mechanisms.

Our work on HIV

• Increase coverage of HIV prevention services, with a special focus on key populations and other vulnerable populations
  
• Strengthen coverage and quality of treatment, care and support for people living with HIV, with special attention for adherence
• Improve and expand use of strategic information to inform policy, programming, research and address structural barriers

Our work on TB

• Provide early rapid and quality diagnosis of TB, multi-drug-resistant TB, TB/diabetes mellitus and TB/HIV with specific focus on screening and diagnosis in selected and prioritized hard to reach vulnerable groups across 11 Pacific island countries
• Sustain high quality treatment for all forms of TB including drug‐resistant TB and HIV related TB with patient support
• Prevent TB through diagnosis and treatment of latent TB infection for high risk groups and scaling up of infection control measures.

Budget

What we have done

• 88% of pregnant women know their HIV status (2015 - target 60%)
• 100% of HIV-positive pregnant women on ART to prevent mother-to-child transmission in 2015 (target of 50%)
• 53% of people living with HIV on ART in 2015 (target 43%)
• Case notification rate of 110 per 100,000 pop. for all forms of TB in 2015 (target 103)
• 83% treatment success rate in 2015 (86% target)
• 73% of health monitoring units submitted timely reports according to national guidelines in 2015 (target of 64%)

For July - December 2015

Grant rating - B1 rating for TB/HIV Grant for performance of the project between 1 July and 31 December 2015; progress on 14 Indicators were provided.

Ongoing work and partnerships

• Technical assistance to the regional and national TB response – Dr. Subhash Yadav is based with the World Health Organisation providing support to the regional and national TB response in Pacific island countries.
• Key population mapping – the University of New South Wales was contracted to implement the Pacific Multi-Country Mapping and Behavioural Study: HIV and STI Risk Vulnerability among key populations in nine Pacific island countries. The reports have been completed for Palau, Vanuatu, Tuvalu, Kiribati Marshal Islands and Cook Islands. The University is working with Samoa, Tonga and the Federated States of Micronesia to finalise reports by October 2016.
• Stigma Index Project – FJN+ will be finalizing the Sub-recipient Agreement and the Implementation schedule for the project.
• Civil Society Organisations Small Grants Scheme – the Small Grants procurement processes have been completed and two successful proposals have been approved by the UNDP Regional Committee Review.
• Condoms and lubricants have been shipped to Cook Islands, Kiribati, Niue, Palau, Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu.
• Partnership with the Pacific Sexual Diversity Network (PSDN) – the Global Fund Programme is supporting the PSDN to establish a wide reaching and well-resourced network and will continue to support activities per PSDN work plan and budget. UNDP has delivered two laptops to PSDN in March as part of its establishment.

Related documents

• Project Overview and Indicators

• Programme Brief