Retention in care

Retention in care is associated with improved virological control and survival among HIV-infected children. However, retention of children in HIV care remains a challenge. This study demonstrates the value of routine laboratory data in monitoring diagnosis, retention and VL suppression in HIV-infected children. This approach is scalable, can be reported near real-time, is relatively inexpensive to implement, and provides a tool for improving paediatric HIV services until clinical databases can assume this role.

An estimated 7.9 million people were living with HIV in South Africa in 2017, with 63.3% of them remaining in antiretroviral therapy (ART) care and 62.9% accessing ART. Poor retention in care and suboptimal adherence to ART undermine the successful efforts of initiating people living with HIV on ART. To address these challenges, the antiretroviral adherence club intervention was designed to streamline ART services to ‘stable’ patients. Nevertheless, it is poorly understood exactly how and why and under what health system conditions the adherence club intervention works.

SOAR researchers assessed a community-based program that provided female sex workers with mobile or home-based ART services. The findings demonstrate that the community-based model can lead to higher ART initiation and retention rates, and better adherence compared to standard facility-based ART provision. As countries aim to reach the 95–95–95 targets, national HIV responses must expand their strategies to effectively provide ART services, particularly to hard-to-reach key populations.

The Eastern Cape province of South Africa has one of the highest burdens of HIV in the world. Emergency Departments (EDs) can serve as optimal clinical sites for the identification of new HIV infections and entry into care. We sought to determine the current burden of HIV disease among ED patients in the Eastern Cape.

High HIV prevalence and attrition along the treatment cascade among emergency department (ED) populations highlights potential role of HIV services in theses settings.

The LINKAGES project first started working in Burundi in August 2016 to reduce HIV transmission among key populations and improve their enrollment and retention in care and treatment. Within the past three years, LINKAGES Burundi has consistently experienced high rates of linking newly diagnosed HIV-positive female sex workers, men who have sex with men, and transgender people to care and treatment. Between the first quarter of FY18 and the second quarter of FY19, the average rates for linkage to antiretroviral treatment were 98 percent among FSWs, 96 percent among MSM, and 100 percent among transgender people. This blog outlines the five “secrets” LINKAGES Burundi credits for their success.

Pregnant and post-partum adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa experience inferior outcomes along the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV (PMTCT) cascade compared to their adult counterparts. Yet, despite this inequality in outcomes, scarce data from the region describe AGYW perspectives to inform adolescent-sensitive PMTCT programming. In this paper, we report findings from formative implementation research examining barriers to, and facilitators of, PMTCT care for HIV-infected AGYW in Malawi, and explore strategies for adapting the mothers2mothers (m2m) Mentor Mother Model to better meet AGYW service delivery-related needs and preferences.

Poor retention in the prevention of women in prevention of vertical transmission programs remains a formidable common setback in elimination of HIV/AIDS. It creates new problems such as poor health outcomes and increased incidence of vertical transmission of HIV. There is a dearth of qualitative information to explain poor retention of women in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programs in Zimbabwe. The purpose of the study was to explore the enablers and barriers of retention of women in PMTCT programs.