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

The Challenge

Mozambique has the eighth highest HIV prevalence in the world, with 12.6 percent of adults living with HIV, and one of the highest HIV mortality rates. The country has made strides in testing people for HIV and providing treatment. But a high proportion of HIV-positive individuals discontinues 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 staying on treatment.

The Approach

Efficiencies for Clinical HIV/AIDS Outcomes (ECHO), a $239 million, seven-year USAID project, works in four provinces to support Government of Mozambique efforts to ensure 95 percent of eligible patients are tested for HIV, 95 percent of people living with HIV receive treatment, and 95 percent of those on treatment are virally suppressed. ECHO is achieving these goals 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 provincial health authorities; and supporting government activities to strengthen crucial laboratory, transport and information systems.

The Results

The project, which covers 148 health facilities, achieved the following milestones as of September 2023, the end of ECHO’s fifth year:

Increased the number of people living with HIV on life-saving antiretroviral treatment (ART) by 18 percent, from 207,753 to 417,059
Increased one-month retention of ART patients from 58 percent to 97 percent
Increased three-month retention of ART patients from 74 percent to 98 percent
Increased viral suppression from 78 percent to 92 percent
Reached 99 percent of TB cases with documented HIV status, with 90 percent linked to treatment

In a new technical brief series, Abt is exploring ECHO’s successful approaches, achievements, and lessons learned from more than five years of implementation. In the project’s most recent briefs, ECHO details its successes in transferring ownership to local leaders; innovative models it has employed to provide patient-centered, efficient care and treatment; and ECHO details its strategies to achieve viral load coverage and suppression – the “third 95” of HIV epidemic control.

Read the Technical Briefs: Advancing HIV Epidemic Control in Mozambique Through Localization (abtglobal.com)

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