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Summary box
New WHO guidelines recommend monitoring individual-level HIV data using case reporting, patient monitoring and vital statistics systems.
Electronic software, deduplication and case verification may help improve the quality of case reporting data.
Incorporating HIV treatment into social health insurance as part of universal health coverage changed data routinely generated in patient monitoring systems.
Strengthening collection of vital statistics at the lowest level of the health system can help improve the sensitivity of the vital statistics system; although systematic and robust ascertainment of cause-of-death is needed.
Leveraging national unique identification may help improve linkages between information systems in the future.
Background
The capacity of governments to generate high-quality, timely, reliable and disaggregated data, and to use these data for planning, are targets within the Sustainable Development Goals.1 Health data are the foundation on which governments plan, budget and act against disease epidemics. For example, all countries agreed to achieve the 90-90-90 targets for HIV/AIDS, wherein 90% of people with HIV are diagnosed, 90% of diagnosed people are on treatment and 90% of people on treatment are virally suppressed.2 Ad hoc surveys and studies are currently capturing this information in many settings.3 WHO recently released guidelines for monitoring HIV service delivery at the individual level.4 These guidelines recommend the use of electronic case reporting, patient monitoring and vital statistics systems to generate up-to-date data that can characterise service delivery gaps that require programmatic correction.4 The guidelines also recommend use of identifiers to link these different information systems.4 Many countries will be embarking on the development of health information systems based on the new WHO guidelines. In Vietnam, the Vietnam Authority on HIV/AIDS Control (VAAC) within the Ministry of Health is responsible for control of HIV/AIDS. VAAC’s Division of Disease Surveillance, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Laboratory is responsible for strategic information. …