Elimination of HIV through the expansion of access to services and capacity building to improve community-based HIV prevention, case identification and treatment initiation - baylor college of…

Elimination of HIV through the expansion of access to services and capacity building to improve community-based HIV prevention, case identification and treatment initiation - baylor college of medicine children's foundation lesotho (baylor lesotho) proposes the RE phela metseng ("we live in communities" in the sesotho language) project, a high-impact community-based platform for delivery of comprehensive, coordinated HIV prevention, testing, and treatment initiation services for sustained epidemic control in lesotho to be implemented in all 10 districts of lesotho. Led by baylor lesotho, RE phela metseng's partners are the lesotho network of people living with HIV/aids and elizabeth glazer pediatric aids foundation. Our network of local and community-based partners will expand access to hard-to-find plhiv in communities and improve access to high-impact, community-based HIV prevention, treatment, and support services. We will use real-time program and survey data to map clusters of new HIV infections by geography and population, and deliver high impact evidence-based HIV prevention, testing and treatment services to ensure lesotho ends HIV/aids by 2030. In recognition of community engagement as a first priority and of the impact of peer support, we will engage and train young people including adolescents living with HIV to conduct listening sessions at baseline, to sensitize peers for demand generation of services and to provide HIV testing services. Through the deployment of multi-disciplinary roving and non-roving teams at the community level, RE phela metseng will ensure the uptake of comprehensive behavioral and biomedical prevention interventions, immediate art initiation in communities and adherence support. Recency testing data will be analyzed regularly to deliver targeted interventions mapped to geographic hot spots to ensure efficient use of resources. RE phela metseng will ensure seamless BI-directional referrals between community and facility service delivery points, using approved MOH referral tools along with physical accompaniment and telephone tracking of clients among complementar y programs. At community level, multi-disciplinary, multi-partner roving teams will collaborate with non-roving personnel and community systems strengthening staff to ensure comprehensive service delivery, with district-level coordinators strengthening program integration and ensuring efficiency and client engagement. National, regional, and district-level personnel will support organizational and technical capacity building for lips; strengthen engagement with community leadership structures and support coordination efforts for a conducive community HIV response and strengthen district health management teams' community-level engagement to support health facility linkages. The success of the RE phela metseng project will be measured by the achievement of targets and deliverables in alignment with short, medium and long-term outcomes. Short-term outcomes will include; increased HIV care and treatment service provision efficiency; increased community-based HIV case-finding efficiency; increased HIV self-test distribution for targeted populations; improved community-based HIV prevention services for vulnerable and high-risk populations; increased knowledge of data use and evidence-based community HIV response among identified local partners; increased capacity of local partners to support community-based HIV response; increased uptake of dreams package of services; increased knowledge of HIV status among agyws; increased targeting and participation of agyw sexual partners. Intermediate outcomes will include; increased identification of new HIV infection clusters; increased awareness and utilization of community-based HIV services in project communities; increased data use by local community partners to inform sustainable program implementation; increased coverage of dreams package ; reduced risk of HIV and STI acquisition in agyw and s