Returning adults and children on ART and HIV-exposed infants to care in Malawi - Poster (2017)

This poster presented at ICASA 2017 highlights a promising intervention to improve client retention in HIV programmes. Beginning in 2015 in Malawi, a collaboration between the Ministry of Health, UNICEF, and UNC-Project Malawi introduced a community-based Expert Client (EC) intervention with a particular focus on HIV-exposed infants and mothers enrolled in the national PMTCT programme.

Rationalization of Partners and Services in the Democratic Republic of the Congo - Promising Practice (2017)

This promising practice reviews the rationalization process and a coordination and planning workshop conducted by OHTA and Ministry of Health representatives for partners working on HIV prevention and PMTCT within certain health zones in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Outcomes of the programme, key lessons learned and considerations for scale up are included in this report. 

HEI Toolkit: DBS Job Aids for Laboratory

CDC-Atlanta Maternal Child HIV Branch and International Lab Branch, in collaboration with partners, have developed tools to support health care workers and laboratorians to provide services to HIV-exposed infants, including infant virologic testing.

DBS Job Aids for the Laboratory: DBS receiving, storage, and acceptance criteria

Intended Audience:
Laboratorians who receive dried blood spot specimens.

Summary:
These are job aids that provide basic information for laboratorians about how to receive, process and store DBS specimens. These job aids apply to DBS specimens that are collected for EID, Viral load or drug resistance testing. They may be displayed on the wall in the laboratory for easy reference.

HEI Toolkit: DBS Job Aids for Clinic

CDC-Atlanta Maternal Child HIV Branch and International Lab Branch, in collaboration with partners, have developed tools to support health care workers and laboratorians to provide services to HIV-exposed infants, including infant virologic testing.

DBS Job Aids for the Clinic: DBS collection, drying, and packaging

Intended audience:
Health care workers who collect specimens for EID on dried blood spots, dry and package specimens for transport.

Summary:
These are visual job aids that are a simplified version of the content provided in the EID video. They cover DBS collection, drying and packaging in the health clinic. They may be displayed on the wall in a health centre for easy reference.

HEI Toolkit: Care of the HIV-Exposed Infant Flipchart

CDC-Atlanta Maternal Child HIV Branch and International Lab Branch, in collaboration with partners, have developed tools to support health care workers and laboratorians to provide services to HIV-exposed infants, including infant virologic testing.

Care of the HIV-Exposed Infant Flipchart

Intended audience:
Health care workers or lay health workers who counsel the caregivers of HEIs.

Summary:
The purpose of this flipchart is to facilitate comprehensive, high quality counseling about the care needs of mothers and HIV-exposed infants to prevent vertical HIV transmission and improve infant health.  The flipchart addresses the importance of maternal health and ART adherence, as well as care and testing for the HIV-exposed infant until the infant’s final HIV diagnosis after the end of breastfeeding.

This flipchart should be printed in large format (A3 or similar), spiral bound and laminated for durable use in health clinics. There are 12 counseling cards total – each card has one side with images for the mother/caregiver and the other side with notes for the counsellor.

Topics include: basics of vertical HIV transmission, maternal health during pregnancy and breastfeeding, safe delivery, infant testing, infant medications – cotrimoxazole and ARV prophylaxis, routine infant care -- growth monitoring and immunizations, infant feeding, family planning, signs of acute child illness, and planning for mother and infant follow up.

Lessons from the PATA 2017 Continental Summit

In follow-up to the 2017 Continental Summit in October 2017, Pediatric-Adolescent Treatment Africa (PATA) released a summary report with key highlights and recommendations from the meeting. Towards an AIDS Free Africa – Delivering on the frontline was the focus of the 2017 Summit, which brought together over 200 delegates across 15 sub-Saharan African countries along with programme implementers and policy-makers from across the globe. The recommendations provided are centred around three pillars – FIND, TREAT and CARE – that support the UNAIDS superfast-track framework. Attending health facility teams drafted new quality improvement plans and will be commencing 53 projects improving service delivery at the frontline in 2018.