Early identification and entry into care is critical to reducing morbidity and mortality in children with HIV. The objective of this report is to describe the impact of the Tingathe programme, which utilises community health workers (CHWs) to improve identification and enrolment into care of HIV-exposed and -infected infants and children. Three programme phases are described. During the first phase, Mentorship Only (MO) (March 2007–February 2008) on-site clinical mentorship on paediatric HIV care was provided. In the second phase, Tingathe-Basic (March 2008–February 2009), CHWs provided HIV testing and counselling to improve case finding of HIV-exposed and -infected children. In the final phase, Tingathe-PMTCT (prevention of mother-to-child transmission) (March 2009–February 2011), CHWs were also assigned to HIV-positive pregnant women to improve mother-infant retention in care. The authors reviewed routinely collected programme data from HIV testing registers, patient mastercards and clinic attendance registers from March 2005 to March 2011. During MO, 42 children (38 HIV-infected and 4 HIV-exposed) were active in care. During Tingathe-Basic, 238 HIV-infected children (HIC) were newly enrolled, a six-fold increase in rate of enrolment from 3.2 to 19.8 per month. The number of HIV-exposed infants (HEI) increased from 4 to 118. During Tingathe-PMTCT, 526 HIC were newly enrolled over 24 months, at a rate of 21.9 patients per month. There was also a seven-fold increase in the average number of exposed infants enrolled per month (9.5–70 patients per month), resulting in 1667 enrolled with a younger median age at enrolment (5.2 vs. 2.5 months). During the Tingathe-Basic and Tingathe-PMTCT periods, CHWs conducted 44,388 rapid HIV tests, 7658 (17.3%) in children aged 18 months to 15 years; 351 (4.6%) tested HIV-positive. Over this time, 1781 HEI were enrolled, with 102 (5.7%) found HIV-infected by positive PCR. Additional HIC entered care through various mechanisms (including positive linkage by CHWs and transfer-ins) such that by February 2011, a total of 866 HIC were receiving care, a 23-fold increase from 2008. A multipronged approach utilising CHWs to conduct HIV testing, link HIC into care and provide support to PMTCT mothers can dramatically improve the identification and enrolment into care of HIV-exposed and -infected children.
Equity and HIV/AIDS
This report delivers a summary of the impact and results the Global Fund partnership was able to achieve by 2015, showing cumulative progress since the Global Fund was created in 2002. It is a collective effort, combining the strong contributions made by governments, civil society, the private sector and people affected by HIV, TB and malaria. Here are the cumulative highlights: 17 million lives saved; on track to reach 22 million lives saved by the end of 2016, a decline of one-third in the number of people dying from HIV, TB and malaria since 2002, in countries where the Global Fund invests, 8.1 million people on antiretroviral treatment for HIV, 13.2 million people have received TB treatment and 548 million mosquito nets distributed through programs for malaria. Building resilient and sustainable systems for health is critically important to end HIV, TB and malaria as epidemics. Overall, more than one-third of the Global Fund’s investments go to building resilient and sustainable systems for health. The Global Fund estimates that approximately 55 to 60 percent of its investments benefit women and girls, with a positive impact on reproductive health.
After a late start and poor initial performance, the South African Prevention of Mother-To-Child Transmission (PMTCT) programme achieved rapid progress in achieving effective national-scale implementation of a complex intervention across a large number of different geographic and socioeconomic contexts. This study shows how quality-improvement methods played a significant part in PMTCT improvements. The South African rollout of the PMTCT programme underwent significant evolution, from a largely ineffective, context-insensitive, top-down cascaded training approach to a sophisticated bottom-up health systems’ intervention that used modern adaptive designs. Several demonstration projects used quality-improvement methods to improve the performance of the PMTCT programme. These results prompted a national redesign of key elements of the PMTCT programme which were rapidly scaled up across the country using a unified, simplified data-driven approach. The scale up of the quality-improvement approach contributed to a dramatic fall in the nationally reported transmission rate for mother to child transmission of HIV. By 2012, measured infection rate of HIV-exposed infants at around 6 weeks after birth was 2.6%, close to the reported transmission rates under clinical trial conditions. Quality-improvement methods can be used to improve reliability of complex treatment programmes delivered at primary-care level. Rapid scale up and effective population coverage can be accomplished through a sequence of demonstration, testing and rapid spread of locally tested implementation strategies supported by real-time feedback of a simplified indicator dataset and multilevel leadership support.
Poverty, family stability, and social policies influence the ability of adolescents to attend school. Likewise, being enrolled in school may shape an adolescent’s risk for HIV and pregnancy. In this paper the authors identified trends in school enrolment, factors predicting school enrolment (antecedents), and health risks associated with staying in or leaving school (consequences). Data from the Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS) were examined for adolescents 15–19 years. School enrolment and socioeconomic status (SES) rose steadily from 1994 to 2013 among adolescents; orphanhood declined after availability of antiretroviral therapy. Antecedent factors associated with school enrolment included age, SES, orphanhood, marriage, family size, and the percent of family members <20 years. In qualitative interviews, youths reported lack of money, death of parents, and pregnancy as primary reasons for school dropout. Among adolescents, consequences associated with school enrolment included lower HIV prevalence, prevalence of sexual experience, and rates of alcohol use and increases in consistent condom use. Young women in school were more likely to report use of modern contraception and never being pregnant. Young men in school reported fewer recent sexual partners and lower rates of sexual concurrency. Rising SES and declining orphanhood were associated with rising school enrolment in Rakai. Increasing school enrolment was associated with declining risk for HIV and pregnancy.
The objective of the study was to assess the influence of parental factors (monitoring, communication, and discipline) on the transition to first sexual intercourse among unmarried adolescents living in urban slums in Kenya. Longitudinal data collected from young people living in two slums in Nairobi, Kenya were used. The sample was restricted to unmarried adolescents aged 12–19 years. Parental factors were used to predict adolescents’ transition to first sexual intercourse. Relevant covariates including the adolescents’ age, sex, residence, school enrollment, religiosity, delinquency, and peer models for risk behaviour were controlled for. Approximately 6 % of the sample transitioned to first sexual intercourse within the one-year study period; there was no sex difference in the transition rate. In the multivariate analyses, male adolescents who reported communication with their mothers were less likely to transition to first sexual intercourse compared to those who did not. This association persisted even after controlling for relevant covariates. However, parental monitoring, discipline, and communication with their fathers did not predict transition to first sexual intercourse for male adolescents. For female adolescents, parental monitoring, discipline, and communication with fathers predicted transition to first sexual intercourse; however, only communication with fathers remained statistically significant after controlling for relevant covariates. This study provides evidence that cross-gender communication with parents is associated with a delay in the onset of sexual intercourse among slum-dwelling adolescents. Targeted adolescent sexual and reproductive health programmatic interventions that include parents may have significant impacts on delaying sexual debut, and possibly reducing sexual risk behaviours, among young people in high-risk settings such as slums.
Poverty, family stability, and social policies influence the ability of adolescents to attend school. Likewise, being enrolled in school may shape an adolescent’s risk for HIV and pregnancy. The authors identified trends in school enrollment, factors predicting school enrollment (antecedents), and health risks associated with staying in or leaving school (consequences). Data from the Rakai Community Cohort Study (RCCS) were examined for adolescents 15–19 years (n = 21,735 person-rounds) from 1994 to 2013. Trends, antecedents, and consequences were assessed. Qualitative data were used to explore school leaving among HIV+ and HIV− youths (15–24 years). School enrollment and socioeconomic status (SES) rose steadily from 1994 to 2013 among adolescents and orphanhood declined after availability of antiretroviral therapy. Antecedent factors associated with school enrollment included age, SES, orphanhood, marriage, family size, and the percent of family members <20 years. In qualitative interviews, youths reported lack of money, death of parents, and pregnancy as primary reasons for school dropout. Among adolescents, consequences associated with school enrollment included lower HIV prevalence, prevalence of sexual experience, and rates of alcohol use and increases in consistent condom use. Young women in school were more likely to report use of modern contraception and never being pregnant. Young men in school reported fewer recent sexual partners and lower rates of sexual concurrency.
This study compared national human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) policies influencing access to HIV testing and treatment services in six sub-Saharan African countries. A policy extraction tool was developed and used to review national HIV policy documents and guidelines published in Kenya, Malawi, South Africa, Uganda, the United Republic of Tanzania and Zimbabwe between 2003 and 2013. Key informant interviews helped to fill gaps in findings. National policies were categorized according to whether they explicitly or implicitly adhered to 54 policy indicators, identified through literature and expert reviews. The authors also compared the national policies with WHO guidance. There was wide variation in policies between countries; each country was progressive in some areas and not in others. Malawi was particularly advanced in promoting rapid initiation of antiretroviral therapy. However, no country had a consistently enabling policy context expected to increase access to care and prevent attrition. Countries went beyond WHO guidance in certain areas and key informants reported that practice often surpassed policy. Evaluating the impact of policy differences on access to care and health outcomes among people living with HIV is challenging. Certain policies will exert more influence than others and official policies are not always implemented. It is proposed that future research assess the extent of policy implementation and link these findings with HIV outcomes.
Global policy recommendations to scale up of male circumcision (MC) for HIV prevention tend to frame the procedure as a simple and efficacious public health intervention. However, there has been variable uptake of MC in countries with significant HIV epidemics. In this paper the authors present an in-depth analysis of Malawi's political resistance to MC, finding that ethnic and religious divisions dominating recent political movements aligned well with differing circumcision practices. Political resistance was further found to manifest through two key narratives: a ‘narrative of defiance’ around the need to resist 'donor manipulation', and a ‘narrative of doubt’ which seized on a piece of epidemiological evidence to refute global claims of efficacy. Further, the authors found that discussions over MC served as an additional arena through which ethnic identities and claims to power could themselves be negotiated, and therefore used to support claims of political legitimacy.
The proposal by the South African Health Ministry to implement HIV testing and counselling (HTC) at schools in 2011 generated debates about the appropriateness of such testing. However, the debate has been between the Ministries of Education and Health, with little considerations of the students. This study assessed the students’ opinions and uptake of HIV testing and counselling in general, and the acceptability of the provision of HIV testing and counselling in schools. A survey was conducted among grade 10–12 high school students in North West and Gauteng provinces, South Africa. Seventeen high schools (nine rural and eight urban) were randomly selected for the administration of a researcher-assisted, self-administered, semi-structured questionnaire. A total of 2970 students aged 14–27 years participated in the study. Having multiple sexual partners, age, and gender were significantly associated with increased odds of having had a HIV test. Fear, being un-informed about HTC, and low HIV risk perceptions were the reasons for not getting tested. The acceptability of HTC at school was high (n = 2282, 76.9%) and 2129 (71.8%) were willing to be tested at school. Appropriateness, privacy, and secrecy were the main arguments for and against HTC at school. One-third had intentions to disclose their HIV status to students versus 42.5% for teachers. Stigma, discrimination and secrecy were the primary reasons students did not intend to disclose. A high acceptability of HTC and willingness to be tested at school suggest that HIV prevention programs tailored to youth have a high potential of success given the readiness of students to uptake HTC. The authors conclude that bringing HIV testing to the school setting will increase the uptake of HTC among youth and contribute towards efforts to scale up HTC in South Africa.
The reported coverage of any antiretroviral (ARV) prophylaxis for prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) has increased in sub-Saharan Africa in recent years, but was still only 60% in 2010, and this may be an overestimation as it does not measure completion. The PMTCT programme is complex as it builds on a cascade of sequential interventions that should take place to reduce mother-to-child transmission (MTCT) of HIV: starting with antenatal care, HIV testing, and ARVs for the woman and the baby. This study was based on a population-based cohort of pregnant women recruited in the Iganga-Mayuge Health and Demographic Surveillance Site in rural Uganda 2008–2010. Using modelling, it was estimated that HIV infections in children could be reduced by 28% by increasing HIV testing capacity at health facilities to ensure 100% testing among women seeking ANC. Providing ART to all women who received ARV prophylaxis would give an 18% MTCT reduction. The results highlight the urgency in scaling-up universal access to HIV testing at all ANC facilities, and the potential gains of early enrolment of all pregnant women on antiretroviral treatment for PMTCT.