People Living With HIV Achieve 100% Viral Suppression In Lagos, 3 Others

The 2023 differentiated service Delivery Performance Review (DPR) has revealed that persons living with HIV (PLHIV) in Lagos, Anambra, Kaduna and Taraba states, devolved to several Differentiated Service Delivery (DSD) models have achieved 100 percent viral load suppression.

In 2014, Nigeria through the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH) approved and commenced implementing the Task-Shifting and Task-Sharing for Essential Healthcare Services policy which later led to the provision of facility-level differentiated service for stable recipients of care using individual appointment spacing which allowed for the provision of multi-month ART refills and fast-tracked visits.

In 2019, the DSD subcommittee was inaugurated from the national task team on ART, leading to the development of the DSD operational manual and other DSD policy documents in the country.

The first DSD performance review was conducted in Akwa Ibom and Federal Capital Territory (FCT), in 2021. This was later expanded through the New Funding Model (3) grant of the Global Fund, to cover four more states (Anambra, Lagos, Kaduna and Taraba) with the overall objective of evaluating the implementation of DSD for HIV in these states.

The DPR 2023 report analysed 8,481 PLHIV, who are accessing ART in 147 facilities, within 69 local government areas (LGAs) in Anambra, Lagos, Kaduna and Taraba states.

The national coordinator, National AIDS, Viral Hepatitis and STIs Control Program (NASCP), FMoH, Dr. Adebobola Bashorun represented by the deputy director/head of treatment care and support program, NASCP, FMoH, Dr. Peter Nwaokenneya, at the national dissemination meeting to present the findings of the DPR yesterday, in Lagos, posited that with the DSD models in place, there is a lot of improvement in the quality of care and services provided to people living with HIV in the country.

The national coordinator assured that the FMoH will continue to take necessary steps to ensure that the scope of the DPR expands to other states with the aim of improving the quality of services across all DSD models for all PLHIV in the country.

Bashorun lauded the efforts of the International Centre for AIDs Care and Treatment Program (ICAP) for its invaluable support throughout the entire DPR process, saying, “I applaud all the states for their collaborative efforts, which greatly contributed to the success of the DPR process as well as DSD implementation,” he stated.