In our 8th issue of our Research Digest, we have assembled 64 abstracts published from March through April 2019 that feature evidence from Botswana (2), Eswatini (2), Lesotho (2), Malawi (12), Mozambique (4), Namibia (1), South Africa (32), Tanzania (3), Zambia (11) and Zimbabwe (14).
Governance
Blog
April 17, 2019
Rural communities in low- and middle-income countries face specific challenges in accessing health care. And yet, these communities are often the most vulnerable and most in need. So how can we overcome these barriers to provide everyone with the health care they have a right to? How do we maximize the available healthcare resources to effectively address inequalities and ensure sustainable service delivery?
Resource
April 12, 2019
Despite the rising burden of noncommunicable diseases, access to quality decentralized noncommunicable disease services remain limited in many low- and middle-income countries. Here we describe the strategies we employed to drive the process from adaptation to national endorsement and implementation of the 2016 Botswana primary healthcare guidelines for adults.
Resource
April 12, 2019
Current policy in South Africa requires measurement of blood pressure at every visit in primary care. The number of patients regularly visiting primary care clinics for routine care is increasing rapidly, causing long queues, and unmanageable workloads.
Resource
April 12, 2019
In East and Southern Africa, where 5% to 10% have chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, incidence of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection remains unacceptably high. This introduces challenges and opportunities for implementation of HBV care and treatment.
Resource
April 12, 2019
Since June 2016, the national HIV programme in Malawi has adopted Universal Test and Treat (UTT) guidelines requiring that all persons who test HIV positive will be referred to start antiretroviral therapy (ART). Although there is strong evidence from clinical trials that early initiation of ART leads to reduced morbidity and mortality, the impact of UTT on retention on ART in real-life programmatic settings in Africa is not yet known.
Resource
April 12, 2019
Zimbabwe has made substantial progress towards the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) targets of 90-90-90 by 2020, with 73% of people living with HIV diagnosed, 87% of those diagnosed on antiretroviral therapy (ART) and 86% of those on ART virally suppressed. Despite this exceptional response, more effort is needed to completely achieve the UNAIDS targets. Here, we conducted a detailed spatial analysis of the geographical structure of the HIV epidemic in Zimbabwe to include geographical prioritization as a key component of their overall HIV intervention strategy.
Resource
April 12, 2019
There has been a proliferation of organizations in Zambia touting the mobilization of traditional games as a tool to prevent HIV. However, there is a dearth of evidence on how culturally important activities like traditional games are being incorporated into programing.
Resource
April 11, 2019
Rural communities comprise about 40% of the country’s population of 57.8 million but, historically, these areas are the last to be considered when it comes to health provision by national, provincial and local authorities.
Event
April 2, 2019
Data for Impact (D4I) is hosting a one-hour webinar, on April 5 at 9 a.m. EDT, to share experience from multiple projects in adapting and managing tools to strengthen the capacity of organizations in low- and medium-resource countries to conduct public health programs independently.
