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Competing Interests: CZ receives consulting fees from the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change. PY receives honoraria from Novartis, bioMérieux, and Pfizer and receives advisory board fees from Pfizer and fees for serving on a DSMB from the US National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute all unrelated to the topic of this Comment. JM is an unpaid Board member of the International Working Group for Health systems strengthening unrelated to the topic of this Comment. DO-A receives advisory board fees from Inovio Pharmaceuticals and is a member of the Board of Directors of GLICO Healthcare all unrelated to the topic of this Comment. The other authors declare no competing interests. This Comment is being published simultaneously in multiple journals (appendix). The full list of journals and supporting journals can be found on the BMJ website.

The burden of HIV/AIDS and other transmissible diseases is higher in prison and jail settings than in the non-incarcerated communities that surround them. In this comprehensive review, we discuss available literature on the topic of clinical management of people infected with HIV, hepatitis B and C viruses, and tuberculosis in incarcerated settings in addition to co-occurrence of one or more of these infections. Methods such as screening practices and provision of treatment during detainment periods are reviewed to identify the effect of community-based treatment when returning inmates into the general population. Where data are available, we describe differences in the provision of medical care in the prison and jail settings of low-income and middle-income countries compared with high-income countries. Structural barriers impede the optimal delivery of clinical care for prisoners, and substance use, mental illness, and infectious disease further complicate the delivery of care. For prison health care to reach the standards of community-based health care, political will and financial investment are required from governmental, medical, and humanitarian organisations worldwide. In this review, we highlight challenges, gaps in knowledge, and priorities for future research to improve health-care in institutions for prisoners., (Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.)