WHO and HIV/AIDS

As the directing and coordinating authority on international health, the World Health Organization (WHO) takes the lead within the UN system in the global health sector response to HIV/AIDS. The HIV/AIDS Department provides evidence-based, technical support to WHO Member States to help them scale up treatment, care and prevention services as well as drugs and diagnostics supply to ensure a comprehensive and sustainable response to HIV/AIDS.
HIV drug resistance is the ability of HIV to mutate and reproduce itself in the presence of antiretroviral drugs. Consequences include treatment failure, increased health costs associated with the need to start more costly second-line treatment, the potential spread of resistant strains of HIV and the need to develop new anti-HIV drugs. The extent of HIV drug resistance resulting from recent antiretroviral therapy scale-up in resource-limited countries is being monitored by National Drug Resistance Working Groups with technical support from WHO.