Category Archives: Health Systems
How linked are national HIV and SRHR strategies? A review of SRHR and HIV strategies in 60 countries
The connection between HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) is widely recognised along with the benefits of linking them at the legal/policy, health systems, and service delivery...
Repurposing medications for use in treating HIV infection: A focus on valproic acid as a latency-reversing agent
WHAT IS KNOWN AND OBJECTIVE: Combined antiretroviral therapy (ART) reduces human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) RNA plasma levels below the limit of detection. However, HIV-1 persists in latently infected...
A scoping review of the role of HIV-related stigma and discrimination in noncommunicable disease care
BACKGROUND: People living with HIV are increasingly burdened by noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) as a result of the NCD susceptibility that accompanies increased life expectancy and the rising global prevalence of...
Use of antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy and adverse birth outcomes among women living with HIV-1 in low- and middle-income countries: A systematic review
BACKGROUND: Worldwide, nearly 18 million women of reproductive age are living with HIV-1. Although increased access to antiretroviral therapy (ART) during pregnancy has significantly reduced HIV-1 mother-to-child transmission (MTCT), a...
Integrated models of care for individuals with opioid use disorder: How do we prevent HIV and HCV?
PURPOSE OF REVIEW: To describe models of integrated and co-located care for opioid use disorder (OUD), hepatitis C (HCV), and HIV. RECENT FINDINGS: The design and scale-up of multidisciplinary care...
Effectiveness of depression interventions for people living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review & meta-analysis of psychological & immunological outcomes
This meta-analytic review evaluated the effectiveness of depression interventions on the psychological and immunological outcomes of people living with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa. 14 studies, yielding 932 participants were eligible....
Analytical quality and effectiveness of point-of-care testing in community pharmacies: A systematic literature review
BACKGROUND: Point-of-care tests are characterised through the ability of conducting them near the patient’s side without the necessity of a laboratory. They can be applied in different healthcare settings to...
The cascade of care following community-based detection of HIV in sub-Saharan Africa – A systematic review with 90-90-90 targets in sight
INTRODUCTION: We aimed to establish how effective community-based HIV testing services (HTS), including home and community location based (non-health facility) HIV testing services (HB-/CLB-HTS), are in improving care in sub-Saharan...
Differentiated HIV care in sub-Saharan Africa: A scoping review to inform antiretroviral therapy provision for stable HIV-infected individuals in Kenya
Many gaps in care exist for provision of antiretroviral therapy (ART) in sub-Saharan Africa. Differentiated HIV care tailors provision of ART for patients based on their level of acuity, providing...
Treatment outcome and adverse events of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate based regimens as compared to zidovudine based regimens among people living with HIV/AIDS: A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies
Background: Findings from different studies report inferior clinical and virologic efficacy with TDF/3TC/NVP. But, some studies show that, there was no statistically significant difference in mortality among ZDV and TDF...
Comparison of 48-week efficacies of elvitegravir/cobicistat/emtricitabine/tenofovir alafenamide and nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor-sparing regimens: A systematic review and network meta-analysis
OBJECTIVES: To compare nucleoside/nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NRTI)-sparing regimens with tenofovir alafenamide (TAF)-based combinations in HIV-1-infected adults, we performed a network meta-analysis (NMA) to provide estimates of relative efficacy for...
