Differentiated Service Delivery Models for Maintaining HIV Treatment and Prevention Services During Crisis and Disease Outbreaks: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: This review summarizes differentiated service delivery (DSD) models for HIV treatment and prevention that have been adapted for maintaining continuity of services during the COVID-19 pandemic and proposes strategies for sustaining their benefits now and during future disruptions. RECENT FINDINGS: The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in an overburdened and disrupted health system, forcing countries to adopt and/or scale up DSD models for HIV services. While initially implemented as emergency measures, these models evolved and were refined over time to fit recipient needs ensuring continued HIV treatment and prevention services with minimal health system impact. Successful models employed task shifting, community-based delivery models, multimonth scripting and dispensing, and telehealth for remote consultation. DSD models enabled HIV services globally to be maintained during the COVID-19 pandemic. Though these models and adaptations were critical in addressing health gaps and disruptions caused by the pandemic, they were beneficial in improving efficiency and access to client-centered services and should be sustained.

Exploring preferences of market traders on the type and delivery methods of HIV services in Lilongwe, Malawi.

Background: Reaching all people with HIV services, including traders in the informal economy, is critical to meeting UNAIDS' 95-95-95 goals. However, traders prioritise their business over attendance at health facilities. This limits their access to health services. This study explores market traders' preferences for the potential type and delivery methods of HIV services at Lilongwe Central market.Method: The study used an exploratory qualitative study design in Lilongwe, Malawi. Sixteen in-depth interviews were conducted among traders at Lilongwe Central Market between June and September 2022. In the same period, we also conducted four key informant interviews involving three officers responsible for HIV services at the district and council levels, and the market chairman.Results: HIV services preferred by market traders include HIV testing, antiretroviral therapy, condom dispensation, voluntary medical male circumcision and HIV awareness campaigns. These services should be offered daily or when the market is less crowded, and they could be delivered in the market. These services can be provided by both lay and health workers, depending on traders' preferences, and must be integrated with other health services to mitigate unintended HIV status disclosure concerns.Conclusion: The achievement of UNAIDS' 95-95-95 goals by 2030 requires that HIV services should be available to all those who require them at times and locations that are convenient for them, through providers they have chosen either as integrated or standalone, depending on the target group perception of the role of these two models in mitigating stigma. This will necessitate the development of new approaches targeting underserved groups, such as traders in markets.

Adaptive Information Dissemination Control to Provide Diffdelay for the Internet of Things.

Applications running on the Internet of Things, such as the Wireless Sensor and Actuator Networks (WSANs) platform, generally have different quality of service (QoS) requirements. For urgent events, it is crucial that information be reported to the actuator quickly, and the communication cost is the second factor. However, for interesting events, communication costs, network lifetime and time all become important factors. In most situations, these different requirements cannot be satisfied simultaneously. In this paper, an adaptive communication control based on a differentiated delay (ACCDS) scheme is proposed to resolve this conflict. In an ACCDS, source nodes of events adaptively send various searching actuators routings (SARs) based on the degree of sensitivity to delay while maintaining the network lifetime. For a delay-sensitive event, the source node sends a large number of SARs to actuators to identify and inform the actuators in an extremely short time; thus, action can be taken quickly but at higher communication costs. For delay-insensitive events, the source node sends fewer SARs to reduce communication costs and improve network lifetime. Therefore, an ACCDS can meet the QoS requirements of different events using a differentiated delay framework. Theoretical analysis simulation results indicate that an ACCDS provides delay and communication costs and differentiated services; an ACCDS scheme can reduce the network delay by 11.111%-53.684% for a delay-sensitive event and reduce the communication costs by 5%-22.308% for interesting events, and reduce the network lifetime by about 28.713%.