Introduction: Support groups for people living with HIV (PLHIV) are essential for increasing adherence, retention, addressing their psychosocial needs and improving patient literacy. However, factors that influence participation of caregivers living with HIV (LHIV) in these groups are scarcely documented, particularly for those caring for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC).
Methods: This study used baseline data collected between 1st October 2021 and 30th September 2022 from the PEPFAR/USAID-funded Adolescents and Children HIV Incidence Reduction, Empowerment and Virus Elimination (ACHIEVE) project in Tanzania to investigate factors that affect participation of caregivers LHIV in support groups for PLHIV.
Introduction: In Tanzania, only 66% children 0-14 years living with HIV know their HIV status, 66% are on treatment while 47% of children on ART are virally suppressed. Although retention on ART and poor adherence remain a challenge for children living with HIV, orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) face a greater limitation of access to and utilization of comprehensive HIV care and treatment. In response to this, the current study assessed the determinants of viral load suppression (VLS) among OVC aged 0-14 years living with HIV enrolled in HIV interventions.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Tanzania has made remarkable progress in reducing malaria burden and aims to transition from malaria control to sub-national elimination. In 2013, electronic weekly and monthly reporting platforms using the District Health Information System 2 (DHIS2) were introduced. Weekly reporting was implemented through the mobile phone-based Integrated Disease Surveillance and Response (eIDSR) platform and progressively scaled-up from 67 to 7471 (100%) public and private health facilities between 2013 and 2020.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the global progress in response to HIV and AIDS, notable challenges remain for children, especially identification, linkage, and retention in HIV care and treatment services. To succeed in pediatric HIV programming requires the linkage and retention of the children in those services over time. This study assessed the level of retention to antiretroviral therapy (ART) and its associated factors among orphans and vulnerable children living with HIV (OVCLHIV) in Tanzania.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: To support the implementation of high-throughput pipelines suitable for SARS-CoV-2 sequencing and analysis in a clinical laboratory, we developed an automated sample preparation and analysis workflow.
Methods: We used the established ARTIC protocol with approximately 400 bp amplicons sequenced on Oxford Nanopore's MinION. Sequences were analyzed using Nextclade, assigning both a clade and quality score to each sample.