Effects of a Peer-Led Intervention on HIV Care Continuum Outcomes Among Contacts of Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults Living With HIV in Zimbabwe.

BACKGROUND: Africaid Zvandiri, in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Child Care (MOHCC) in Zimbabwe, implemented a comprehensive, peer-led program, focused on children, adolescents, and young adults living with HIV aged 0-24 years. The peers, known as community adolescent treatment supporters (CATS), are people living with HIV (PLHIV) aged 18-24 years who are trained and mentored to support their peers throughout the HIV care continuum through support groups, home visits, phone call reminders, and messages. We report the HIV care continuum outcomes (HIV testing uptake, antiretroviral therapy [ART] uptake, retention, and viral suppression) in a cohort of household contacts and sexual partners (aged younger than 25 years) of index children, adolescents, and young adults living with HIV identified by CATS from October 2017 to September 2018 in 24 districts of Zimbabwe. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study involving analysis of routine program data, extracted from electronic databases consisting of data on contacts of index PLHIV and ART outcomes. We used April 30, 2019, as the censor date for all analyses. RESULTS: A total of 15,223 household contacts and sexual partners with unknown HIV status (linked to 9,353 index PLHIV) were identified and referred for HIV testing. Of these, 12,114 (79.6%) were tested and 1,193 (9.8%) were HIV-positive. Of the latter, 1,153 (96.6%) were initiated on ART with 99% starting on the day of diagnosis. Of those on ART, 1,151 (99.8%) were alive on ART at 6 months and 2 (0.2%) died. A total of 1,044 (91%) children, adolescents, and young people living with HIV underwent viral load testing at 6 months or later, of whom 1,037 (99.3%) were virally suppressed (<1000 copies/ml). CONCLUSION: These findings add to the global evidence demonstrating the effectiveness of peer-led interventions in children, adolescents, and young adults living with HIV and justify the decision of the MOHCC in Zimbabwe to scale-up the model nationally. Future research should aim to understand the reasons for the gaps in HIV testing and viral load testing using qualitative research.

Zvandiri-Bringing a Differentiated Service Delivery Program to Scale for Children, Adolescents, and Young People in Zimbabwe.

Since 2004, there has been a dramatic shift in the HIV response for children, adolescents, and young people in low resource settings. Previous programs and services were largely orientated to adults. This is now changing, but there is limited evidence on how to take services for children, adolescents, and young people living with HIV (CAYPLHIV) to scale. Zvandiri is a theoretically grounded, multicomponent-differentiated service delivery model for children, adolescents, and young people in Zimbabwe that integrates peer-led, community interventions within government health services. Africaid analyzed routine program and other data from November 2004 to October 2017 to document Zvandiri scale-up, framed by the World Health Organization framework for scaling up interventions. Since 2004, Zvandiri has evolved from one support group in Harare into a comprehensive model, combining community- and clinic-based health services and psychosocial support for CAYPLHIV. Zvandiri was scaled up across Zimbabwe through phased expansion into 51 of 63 districts, reaching 40,213 CAYPLHIV. Evidence indicates that this approach improved uptake of HIV testing services, adherence, and retention in care. The environment and strategic choices were critical when taking the model to scale, particularly nesting the program within existing services, and capacity strengthening of service providers working jointly with trained, mentored CAYPLHIV. The results provide a firm foundation for programming and from which to build evidence of sustainable impact. Formal impact evaluation is needed and underway. These program data contribute to the essential evidence base on strategic approaches to assist in planning services for this relatively neglected group.