A Two-stage Approach for Rapid Assessment of the Proportion Achieving Viral Suppression Using Routine Clinical Data.

BACKGROUND: Improving viral suppression among people with HIV reduces morbidity, mortality, and transmission. Accordingly, monitoring the proportion of patients with a suppressed viral load is important to optimizing HIV care and treatment programs. But viral load data are often incomplete in clinical records. We illustrate a two-stage approach to estimate the proportion of treated people with HIV who have a suppressed viral load in the Dominican Republic. METHODS: Routinely collected data on viral load and patient characteristics were recorded in a national database, but 74% of patients on treatment at the time of the study did not have a recent viral load measurement. We recruited a subset of these patients for a rapid assessment that obtained additional viral load measurements. We combined results from the rapid assessment and main database using a two-stage weighting approach and compared results to estimates obtained using standard approaches to account for missing data. RESULTS: Of patients with recent routinely collected viral load data, 60% had a suppressed viral load. Results were similar after applying standard approaches to account for missing data. Using the two-stage approach, we estimated that 77% (95% confidence interval [CI] = 74, 80) of those on treatment had a suppressed viral load. CONCLUSIONS: When assessing the proportion of people on treatment with a suppressed viral load using routinely collected data, applying standard approaches to handle missing data may be inadequate. In these settings, augmenting routinely collected data with data collected through sampling-based approaches could allow more accurate and efficient monitoring of HIV treatment program effectiveness.

The burden of HIV among female sex workers, men who have sex with men and transgender women in Haiti: results from the 2016 Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) study.

INTRODUCTION: Despite the higher risk of HIV among female sex workers (FSWs), men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women (TGW), these populations are under-represented in the literature on HIV in Haiti. Here, we present the first nationally representative estimates of HIV prevalence and the first care and treatment cascade for FSWs, MSM and TGW in Haiti. We also examine the social determinants of HIV prevalence in these groups and estimate FSW and MSM population size in Haiti. METHODS: Data were collected between April 2016 and February 2017 throughout the 10 geographical departments of Haiti. The Priorities for Local AIDS Control Efforts (PLACE) method was used to: (1) recruit participants for a behavioural survey; (2) provide rapid testing, counselling and linkage to care for syphilis and HIV; and (3) measure viral load using dried blood spots for participants testing HIV positive. RESULTS: Study participants included 990 FSWs, 520 MSM and 109 TGW. HIV prevalence was estimated at 7.7% (95% CI 6.2%, 9.6%) among FSWs, 2.2% (0.9%, 5.3%) among MSM and 27.6% (5.0%, 73.5%) among TGW. Of participants who tested positive for syphilis, 17% of FSWs, 19% of MSM and 74% of TGW were co-infected with HIV. Economic instability and intimate partner violence (IPV) were significantly associated with HIV among MSM; food insecurity, economic instability and history of rape were significantly associated with HIV among TGW. Fewer than one-third of participants living with HIV knew their status, and more than a quarter of those who knew their status were not on treatment. While approximately four in five FSW and MSM participants on treatment for HIV were virally suppressed, viral suppression was less common among TGW participants at only 46%. CONCLUSIONS: This study demonstrates a need for targeted interventions to prevent and treat HIV among key populations in Haiti. Potential high-impact interventions may include venue-based, peer navigator-led outreach and testing for HIV and syphilis and improving screening and case management for structural violence and IPV. TGW are in urgent need of such interventions due to our observations of alarmingly high HIV prevalence and low frequency of HIV viral suppression among TGW.

A role for community health promoters in tuberculosis control in the state of Chiapas, Mexico.

We conducted a qualitative study employing structured interviews with 38 community health workers, known as health promoters, from twelve rural municipalities of Chiapas, Mexico in order to characterize their work and identify aspects of their services that would be applicable to community-based tuberculosis (TB) control programs. Health promoters self-identify as being of Mayan Indian ethnicity. Most are bilingual, speaking Spanish and one of four indigenous Mayan languages native to Chiapas. They volunteer 11 h each week to conduct clinical and public health work in their communities. Over half (53%) work with a botiquín, a medicine cabinet stocked with essential medicines. Fifty-three percent identify TB as a major problem affecting the health of their communities, with one-fifth (21%) of promoters reporting experience caring for patients with known or suspected TB and 29% having attended to patients with hemoptysis. One-third of health promoters have access to antibiotics (32%) and one-half have experience with their administration; 55% complement their biomedical treatments with traditional Mayan medicinal plant therapies in caring for their patients. We describe how health promoters employ both traditional and allopathic medicine to treat the symptoms and diseases they encounter most frequently which include fever, diarrhea, and parasitic infections. We contend that given the complex sociopolitical climate in Chiapas and the state's unwavering TB epidemic and paucity of health care infrastructure in rural areas, efforts to implement comprehensive, community-based TB control would benefit from employing the services of health promoters.