Controlling the HIV Epidemic in Mozambique
Highlights
- Mozambique is struggling to bring its HIV epidemic under control.
- Strengthen public health services; ensure sustainability of the HIV response.
- After one year of full implementation ECHO achieved significant improvements.
Mozambique has 12.6 percent of adults living with HIV, and one of the highest HIV mortality rates in the world. The country has made strides in testing people for HIV and providing treatment. But a high proportion of HIV-positive individuals are not receiving treatment due to systemic challenges: long distances to access health facilities, long wait times in facilities, stigma, and ineffective delivery of information about the importance of knowing their HIV status and being on treatment.
Efficiencies for Clinical HIV/AIDS Outcomes (ECHO), a $209 million, five-year USAID project, works in four provinces to support Government of Mozambique efforts to ensure 95 percent of HIV-positive individuals receive treatment and 95 percent of those on treatment are virally suppressed. ECHO will achieve this goal by providing technical assistance; deploying hundreds of health workers, community workers and data analysts to sites with poor performance; training government health workers; giving grants to community outreach organizations; and supporting government activities to strengthen crucial laboratory, transport and information systems. ECHO’s approach targets key populations experiencing unique barriers to HIV treatment, prioritizing male engagement, youth and adolescent outreach, and clinical and psychosocial support to survivors of gender-based violence.
In its first year, ECHO achieved significant results, including:
- Increasing the number of people living with HIV receiving life-saving antiretroviral treatment from 207,753 to 246,256
- Increasing the number of people at risk for contracting HIV who receive prevention drugs (pre-exposure prophylaxis) from 45 in the previous year to 2,109
- Providing treatment to 22,595 pregnant women living with HIV to prevent transmission to their babies
- Increasing one-month adherence to HIV treatment from 58% to 90% and three-month adherence from 74% to 89%
- Increasing the percentage of HIV patients screened for TB from 75% to 96%
- Launching cervical cancer screening services and screening 49,387 women
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