Tracing defaulters in HIV prevention of mother-to-child transmission programmes through community health workers: results from a rural setting in Zimbabwe.

Introduction: High retention in care is paramount to reduce vertical human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infections in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) programmes but remains low in many sub-Saharan African countries. We aimed to assess the effects of community health worker-based defaulter tracing (CHW-DT) on retention in care and mother-to-child HIV transmission, an innovative approach that has not been evaluated to date.

Methods: We analyzed patient records of 1878 HIV-positive pregnant women and their newborns in a rural PMTCT programme in the Tsholotsho district of Zimbabwe between 2010 and 2013 in a retrospective cohort study.