‘HIV, Health and Your Community: A Guide for Action’ was developed by Dr Reuben Granich and Dr Jonathan Mermin as an accessible guide for community health and primary health workers in settings where resources were limited but the challenge of HIV was immense.

It was based on their experience of working alongside health care professionals in sub-Saharan, Africa and Asia to develop sustainable HIV and TB care.

The book was published in 1999, and is now in use in over 35 countries; community-based organizations have translated it into Amharic, Arabic, Mandarin, Telegu, Bahassa, Bengali, Urdu, Oriya, Swahili, French, Iban, Spanish, Thai, Nepali, Hindi, Yoruba, Tamil, Sindhi, Farsi, Russian and Vietnamese. A revised edition was published in English in 2006.

After a decade in print, the authors are now partnering with NAM to develop and publish a new edition.

The new edition will take into account the great progress made in treating and preventing HIV over the past decade:

• Greater availability of lifesaving antiretroviral drugs
• Highly effective use of antiretroviral drugs to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV
• Widespread availability of rapid HIV antibody tests that give results within half an hour
• The good news that antiretroviral drugs greatly reduce the risk that HIV can be transmitted to sexual partners

The new edition will incorporate:

• The importance of a basic package of care for people with HIV, easily delivered at community level.
• The importance of preventing and treating TB in people living with HIV
• Understanding how HIV treatment is a powerful tool for preventing new infections.
• Why human rights are at the heart of the best approaches to dealing with HIV in the community
• What ordinary people can do to organise care, and to advocate for the right to treatment and care.

NAM is making the 2006 edition available for download but we have highlighted where sections may now be out of date due to advances in treatment and care.