HIV-specific interventions in poor regions of the world like sub-Saharan Africa may have benefits for their health systems that exceed the initial aims of those interventions (How should HIV-specific charitable interventions like PEPFAR be evaluated? (STI/blog)). This is the encouraging message coming out of a recent evaluation of treatment of rheumatoid heart disease (RHD) in […]
Category: HIV Engagement in care
What is the potential of ‘Treatment for Prevention’ in fighting HIV/AIDS?
UNAIDS 90:90:90 appears to have set the course for a global ‘treatment as prevention’ strategy. In 2015 the US revised its National HIV/AIDS Strategy (NHAS) to harmonize its goals with UNAIDS 90% targets for testing, engagement in care, and virological suppression. Though the HIV/AIDS community have been nervous about the impact of the recent change […]
Modelling the scale-down of HIV services in sub-Saharan Africa
Search BMJ STI archive, and you will find frequent references to ‘scaling up’, and few – if any – to ‘scaling back’ or ‘scaling down’ (other than Parker/STI). Who knows if all this may not be about to change, if the US government goes ahead with threats to cut current foreign aid budget ear-marked for […]
Achieving UNAIDS 90-90-90: More haste less speed?
UNAIDS (2014) has set targets for HIV management that seem ambitious, if not unrealistically so (UNAIDS: 90-90-90): 90% of those living with HIV to know their status; 90% of known HIV+ individuals to undergo ART initiation; 90% of ART+ initiated to achieve viral suppression. A one-year-in report from a large cluster-randomized study of home-based testing […]