Small area analysis of HIV viral load suppression patterns in a high priority district (2012–2016), South Africa

Lucy Chimoyi, Tendesayi Kufa, Zvifadzo Matsena-Zingoni, Florian Marx, Kennedy Otwombe, Eustasius Musenge and Salome Charalambous

PLOS Global Public Health, 2023, vol. 3, issue 3, 1-16

Abstract: Globally, high viral load (VL) suppression rates are indicators of successful HIV treatment programs. Evaluation of these programmes at lower levels is likely to highlight variations that are masked at the provincial or national levels. This ecological study used routinely collected clinical and surveillance data on the HIV programme from 88 sampled Ekurhuleni wards. Between January 2012 and December 2016, 26 222 HIV VL tests for 2817 patients were conducted. We conducted a secondary analysis to determine the predictors of high VL suppression accounting for space and time random effects and estimate the impact of the national universal test-and-treat roll-out in 2016 and forecast VL suppression rates for five years post-2016.The proportion of VL suppression increased over the years: 2012 (47.8%: 95% confidence interval (CI): 36.7%-67.4%); 2013 (58.2%: 95%CI: 41.4%-79.6%); 2014 (62.7%: 95%CI: 45.2%-84.7%); 2015 (67.2%: 95%CI: 49.0%-89.9%) and 2016 (61.2%: 95%CI: 43.9%-83.0%). For every percentage increase in ART initiation, high VL suppression rates increased by 35% (RR: 1.345; 95% credible interval (Crl) 1.221–1.492) and for every percentage increase in women in the ward, high VL suppression increased by 44% (RR: 1.442; 95%CrI: 1.056–1.962). There was evidence of high and low clusters of viral load suppression observed at ward-level. The VL suppression rates in Ekurhuleni were lower than the 90% UNAIDS target. There was heterogeneity of high VL suppression across wards and study period. Targeted interventions strengthening ART initiation and retention in care are critical to achieving optimal VL suppression in Ekurhuleni and districts with similar profiles.

Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... journal.pgph.0001728 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/globalpublichealth/artic ... 01728&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pgph00:0001728

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0001728

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS Global Public Health from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by globalpubhealth ().