The EGPAF District Technical Officer (DTO) for Chiradzulu Suleman Issah says Expert Clients deployed in 11 of the 15 health facilities based in his district have successfully traced 1,292 defaulters and brought back 1,098 (85%) of them to care.
Issah said this at a stakeholders meeting convened by the Network of Journalists Living with HIV (JONEHA) on 24th February, 2022. JONEHA organized the meeting that aimed at sharing updates on ART defaulter rates from 5 PEPFAR supported districts where JONEHA is running a Community Led Monitoring (CLM) Project with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through AVAC under the COMPASS Africa Initiative.
He said that defaulter tracing exercise in the district starts with missed appointments and that at the end of each quarter a list of defaulters is generated from a Point of Care where verification is done through Electronic Medical Record (EMR) in which incomplete visits or documentation are taken into account and finally a list of true defaulters is then distributed to Expert Clients for tracing.
The DTO pointed out that for some of the clients particularly adolescents without a stable guardian who are likely to fall into a default trap due to their vulnerability to the social environment like monetary problems for which the Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) is running a cash transfer pro-gram targeting the most disadvantaged people living with HIV to help them stay in care.
The district is also intensifying its counseling sessions through case management to deter would be defaulters who would negligently deceive themselves into thinking that they are very healthy and resort into drug interruption. The DTO said in a bid to deal with transport and busy schedules, the district is promoting a six-month refill which has visibly proved a success as a Differentiated Service Delivery (DSD) approach.
Issah reported that with support from international partners the district is running a mentorship and regular data cleaning program to deal with incomplete documentation in EMR which creates false defaulters. On clients that are difficult to trace like those from Blantyre the district plans to engage the Blantyre ART coordinator to map out on how best to man-age clients from Blantyre.
Following inadequate and delayed funding that affect the operation of ART clinics, the district plans to submit a proposal that would empower Expert Clients to submit field re-quests based on their needs. He said the district will ensure that the facilities have adequate drugs to support the multi-month dispensing program.
