Factors associated with long-term antiretroviral therapy attrition among adolescents in rural Uganda: a retrospective study.

Introduction: As access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) increases, the success of treatment programmes depends on ensuring high patient retention in HIV care. We examined retention and attrition among adolescents in ART programmes across clinics operated by The AIDS Support Organization (TASO) in Uganda, which has operated both facility- and community-based distribution models of ART delivery since 2004.

Methods: Using a retrospective cohort analysis of patient-level clinical data, we examined attrition and retention in HIV care and factors associated with attrition among HIV-positive adolescents aged 10-19 years who initiated ART at 10 TASO clinics between January 2006 and December 2011.

Determinants of Utilization and Community Experiences with Community Health Volunteers for Treatment of Childhood Illnesses in Rural Sierra Leone.

In 2010, at the same time as the national roll out of the Free Health Care Initiative (FHCI), which removed user fees for facility based health care, trained community health volunteers (CHVs) were deployed to provide integrated community case management of diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia to children under 5 years of age (U5) in Kambia and Pujehun districts, Sierra Leone. After 2 years of implementation and in the context of FHCI, CHV utilization rate was 14.0 %.

Influence of community health volunteers on care seeking and treatment coverage for common childhood illnesses in the context of free health care in rural Sierra Leone.

Objective: To examine whether community health volunteers induced significant changes in care seeking and treatment of ill children under five 2 years after their deployment in two underserved districts of Sierra Leone.

Methods: A pre-test-post-test study with intervention and comparison groups was used. A household cluster survey was conducted among caregivers of 5643 children at baseline and of 5259 children at endline.