Abstractobjectives Further scale-up of antiretroviral therapy (ART) to those in need while supporting the growing patient cohort on ART requires continuous adaptation of healthcare delivery models. We describe several approaches to manage stable patients on ART developed by M edecins Sans Fronti eres together with Ministries of Health in four countries in sub-Saharan Africa.methods Using routine programme data, four approaches to simplify ART delivery for stable patients on ART were assessed from a patient and health system perspective: appointment spacing for clinical and drug refill visits in Malawi, peer educator-led ART refill groups in South Africa, community ART distribution points in DRC and patient-led community ART groups in Mozambique.results All four approaches lightened the burden for both patients (reduced travel and lost income) and health system (reduced clinic attendance). Retention in care is high: 94% at 36 months in Malawi, 89% at 12 months in DRC, 97% at 40 months in South Africa and 92% at 48 months in Mozambique. Where evaluable, service provider costs are reported to be lower.conclusion Separating ART delivery from clinical assessments was found to benefit patients and programmes in a range of settings. The success of community ART models depends on sufficient and reliable support and resources, including a flexible and reliable drug supply, access to quality clinical management, a reliable monitoring system and a supported lay workers cadre. Such models require ongoing evaluation and further adaptation to be able to reach out to more patients, including specific groups who may be challenged to meet the demands of frequent clinic visits and the integrated delivery of other essential chronic disease interventions.

The delivery of HIV care in the initial rapid scale-up of HIV care and treatment was based on existing clinic-based models, which are common in highly resourced settings and largely undifferentiated for individual needs. A new framework for treatment based on variable intensities of care tailored to the specific needs of different groups of individuals across the cascade of care is proposed here. Service intensity is characterised by four delivery components: (i) types of services delivered, (ii) location of service delivery, (iii) provider of health services and (iv) frequency of health services. How these components are developed into a service delivery framework will vary across countries and populations, with the intention being to improve acceptability and care outcomes. The goal of getting more people on treatment before they become ill will necessitate innovative models of delivering both testing and care. As HIV programmes expand treatment eligibility, many people entering care will not be ‘patients’ but healthy, active and productive members of society 1. To take the framework to scale, it will be important to: (i) define which individuals can be served by an alternative delivery framework; (ii) strengthen health systems that support decentralisation, integration and task shifting; (iii) make the supply chain more robust; and (iv) invest in data systems for patient tracking and for programme monitoring and evaluation.La délivrance des soins du VIH dans le déploiement initial rapide des soins et du traitement du VIH a été basée sur des modèles existants dans les cliniques, qui sont courants dans les régions bénéficiant d’importantes ressources et largement indifférenciées pour les besoins individuels. Un nouveau cadre est proposé ici pour le traitement basé selon les intensités variables de soins, adaptés aux besoins spécifiques des différents groupes de personnes à travers la cascade de soins. L’intensité des services est caractérisée par quatre éléments de délivrance: (1) les types de services délivrés, (2) l’emplacement de la délivrance des services, (3) Les prestataires des services de santé et (4) la fréquence des services de santé. La façon dont ces éléments sont développés dans un cadre de prestation de services peut varier selon les pays et les populations, l’intention étant d’améliorer les résultats d’acceptabilité et des soins. Le but d’obtenir plus de personnes sous traitement avant qu’ils ne tombent malades nécessitera des modèles innovateurs de prestation à la fois pour dépistage et pour les soins. Comme les programmes VIH étendent l’éligibilité au traitement, beaucoup de gens qui entrent dans les soins ne seront pas des “malades- mais des éléments sains de la société, actifs et productifs. Afin de tenir le cadre à l’échelle, il sera important de: (1) définir les individus qui peuvent être traités par un cadre alternatif de prestation, (2) renforcer les systèmes de santé qui soutiennent la décentralisation, l’intégration et le transfert des tâches; (3) rendre la chaîne d’approvisionnement plu...

Introduction: Increasingly, there is a need for health authority scale up of successfully piloted differentiated models of antiretroviral therapy (ART) delivery. However, there is a paucity of evidence on system-wide outcomes after scale-up. In the Cape Town health district, stable adult patients were referred to adherence clubs (ACs) – a group model of ART delivery with five visits per year. By the end of March 2015, over 32,000 ART patients were in an AC. We describe patient outcomes of a representative sample of AC patients during this scale-up.Methods: Patients enrolled in an AC at non-research supported sites between 2011 and 2014 were eligible for analysis. We sampled 10% of ACs (n = 100) in quintets proportional to the number of ACs at each facility, linking each patient to city-wide laboratory and service access data to validate retention and virologic outcomes. We digitized registers and used competing risks regression and cross-sectional methods to estimate outcomes: mortality, transfers, loss to follow-up (LTFU) and viral load suppression (≤400 copies/mL). Predictors of LTFU and viral rebound were assessed using Cox proportional hazards models.Results: Of the 3216 adults contributing 4019 person years of follow-up (89% in an AC, median 1.1 years), 70% were women. Retention was 95.2% (95% CI, 94.0-96.4) at 12 months and 89.3% (95% CI, 87.1-91.4) at 24 months after AC enrolment. In the 13 months prior to analysis closure, 88.1% of patients had viral load assessments and of those, viral loads ≤400 copies/mL were found in 97.2% (95% CI, 96.5-97.8) of patients. Risk of LTFU was higher in younger patients and in patients accessing ART from facilities with larger ART cohorts. Risk of viral rebound was higher in younger patients, those that had been on ART for longer and patients that had never sent a buddy to collect their medication.Conclusions: This is the first analysis reporting patient outcomes after health authorities scaled-up a differentiated care model across a high burden district. The findings provide substantial reassurance that stable patients on long-term ART can safely be offered care options, which are more convenient to patients and less burdensome to services.

Abstractobjective To ascertain estimates of adult patients, recorded as lost to follow-up (LTFU) within antiretroviral treatment (ART) programmes, who have self-transferred care, died or truly stopped ART in low-and middle-income countries.methods PubMed, EMBASE, Web of Science, Science Direct, LILACS, IndMed and AIM databases (2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010)(2011)(2012)(2013) and IAS/AIDS conference abstracts (2011)(2012)(2013) were searched for tracing studies reporting the proportion of traced patients found to have self-transferred, died or stopped ART. These estimates were then combined using random-effects meta-analysis. Risk of bias was assessed through subgroup and sensitivity analyses.results Twenty eight studies were eligible for inclusion, reporting true outcomes for 10 806 traced patients attending approximately 258 ART facilities. None were from outside sub-Saharan Africa. Twenty three studies reported 4.5-54.4% traced LTFU patients self-transferring care, providing a pooled estimate of 18.6% (95% CI 15.8-22.0%). A significant positive association was found between rates of selftransfer and LTFU in the ART cohort. The pooled estimates for unreported deaths were 38.8% (95% CI 30.8-46.8%; 27 studies) and 28.6% (95% CI 21.9-36.0%; 20 studies) for patients stopping ART. A significant decrease in unreported deaths from 50.0% (95% CI 41.5-58.4%) to 30.0% (95% CI 21.1-38.9%) was found comparing study periods before and after 31 December 2007.conclusions Substantial unaccounted for transfers and deaths amongst patients LTFU confirms that retention and mortality is underestimated where the true outcomes of LTFU patients are not ascertained.keywords Human immunodeficiency virus, antiretroviral therapy, lost to follow-up, mortality, continuity of care, systematic review

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IntroductionThe prognosis of patients with HIV in Africa has improved with the widespread use of antiretroviral therapy (ART) but these successes are threatened by low rates of long-term retention in care. There are limited data on predictors of retention in care, particularly from rural sites.MethodsProspective cohort analysis of outcome measures in adults from a rural HIV care programme in Madwaleni, Eastern Cape, South Africa. The ART programme operates from Madwaleni hospital and seven primary care feeder clinics with full integration between inpatient and outpatient services. Outreach workers conducted home visits for defaulters.Results1803 adults initiated ART from June 2005 to May 2009. At the end of the study period 82.4% were in active care or had transferred elsewhere, 11.1% had died and 6.5% were lost to follow-up (LTFU). Independent predictors associated with an increased risk of LTFU were CD4 nadir >200, initiating ART as an inpatient or while pregnant, and younger age, while being in care for >6 months before initiating ART was associated with a reduced risk. Independent factors associated with an increased risk of mortality were baseline CD4 count <50 and initiating ART as an inpatient, while being in care for >6 months before initiating ART and initiating ART while pregnant were associated with a reduced risk.ConclusionsServing a socioeconomically deprived rural population is not a barrier to successful ART delivery. Patients initiating ART while pregnant and inpatients may require additional counselling and support to reduce LTFU. Providing HIV care for patients not yet eligible for ART may be protective against being LTFU and dying after ART initiation.

Abstractobjectives As the scale of the South African HIV epidemic calls for innovative models of care that improve accessibility for patients while overcoming chronic human resource shortages, we (i) assess the cost-effectiveness of lay health worker-led group adherence clubs, in comparison with a nursedriven 'standard of care' and (ii) describe and evaluate the associated patient cost and accessibility differences. conclusions Adherence clubs offer the potential to enhance healthcare efficiency and patient accessibility. Their scale-up should be supported.

Abstractobjective The ambitious '90-90-90' treatment targets require innovative models of care to support quality antiretroviral therapy (ART) delivery. While evidence for differentiated models of ART delivery is growing, there are few data on the feasibility of scale-up. We describe the implementation of the Adherence Club (AC) model across the Cape Metro health district in Cape Town, South Africa, between January 2011 and March 2015.methods Using data from monthly aggregate AC monitoring reports and electronic monitoring systems for the district cohort, we report on the number of facilities offering ACs and the number of patients receiving ART care in the AC model.results Between January 2011 and March 2015, the AC programme expanded to reach 32 425 patients in 1308 ACs at 55 facilities. The proportion of the total ART cohort retained in an AC increased from 7.3% at the end of 2011 to 25.2% by March 2015. The number of facilities offering ACs also increased and by the end of the study period, 92.3% of patients were receiving ART at a facility that offered ACs. During this time, the overall ART cohort doubled from 66 616 to 128 697 patients. The implementation of the AC programme offset this increase by 51%.conclusions ACs now provide ART care to more than 30 000 patients. Further expansion of the model will require additional resources and support. More research is necessary to determine the outcomes and quality of care provided in ACs and other differentiated models of ART delivery, especially when implemented at scale.keywords antiretroviral, drug delivery systems, community-based distribution, medication adherence, loss to follow-up