The Investigators of the Community ART for Retention in Zambia: Evaluating the Feasibility, Effectiveness, and Efficiency of Decentralized and Streamlined Antiretroviral Therapy Care Models (CommART) study are indebted to the Government of the Republic of Zambia, through the Ministry of Health, for their valuable guidance and support during implementation. CommART implemented four Differentiated Service Delivery (DSD) models in 16 public health facilities across the Lusaka, Southern, and Eastern Provinces.  We also express sincere thanks to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for supporting the CommART vision not only through funding, but by providing meaningful technical guidance throughout.

 

We thank and salute study participants and Ministry of Health staff for their time and contributions to the CommART study and the larger vision of implementing DSD models in Zambia. The experiences, views, suggestions and recommendations of all stakeholders are paramount to improving HIV-infected patient retention in care and to ultimately improve their health outcomes. Finally, we thank CommART staff and those under the wider Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) umbrella, for their valuable contributions and dedication invested in the production of this toolkit.

 

We hope that the CommART Toolkit is able to provide other program implementers and researchers with the practical materials and information to enable them to tackle their HIV epidemic and make substantial achievements towards reaching the UNAIDS Global 90-90-90 Treatment Targets in their contexts and settings.  Our belief is that through innovative strategies, such as the provision of the differentiated service delivery models detailed in this Toolkit, that patient retention in care and patient outcomes can be improved at each step of the HIV prevention, care, and treatment cascade.  

 

Dr Izukanji Sikazwe MBChB, MPH

Co - Principal Investigator

Chief Executive Officer, CIDRZ

 

31^st January 2018