Background: Adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) face unique challenges that result in persistent gaps in achieving and maintaining suppressed viral load. Although effective evidence-based interventions to address treatment gaps in adolescents are readily available, health systems in resource-constrained, high HIV prevalence settings are challenged to implement them to achieve epidemic control. Here, we describe the health system responses to address the treatment gap of unsuppressed ALHIV on antiretroviral therapy in Windhoek, Namibia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
November 2022
Windhoek joined the Fast-Track Cities Initiative in 2017 to optimize HIV service delivery for adolescents, promoting adherence and sustaining viral suppression. Recent surveys and programmatic data show that the treatment gap remains greatest among children and adolescents living with HIV. A retrospective cohort analysis of adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) receiving antiretroviral therapy (ART) at Windhoek healthcare facilities was conducted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAdolescents living with HIV (ALHIV) face unique developmental challenges that increase the risk of unsuppressed viral loads. Current reviews present a need for proven interventions to improve viral suppression among ALHIV on ART, who have a history of unsuppressed viral loads. This systematic review aims to synthesize and appraise evidence of the effectiveness of interventions to improve treatment outcomes among ALHIV with unsuppressed viral loads.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Adolescents represent one of the most underserved population groups among people living with HIV. With successes in the elimination of mother to child transmission initiatives and advances in paediatric HIV treatment programmes, a large population of HIV-infected children are surviving into adolescence. Adolescence presents unique challenges that increase the risk of non-suppressed viral loads in adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV).
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