In 2016, the Centre for Infectious Disease Research in Zambia (CIDRZ) received a 5 year – $100 million United States government grant through the Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to ensure epidemic control through sustained decreases of new infections and mortality along the entire HIV care continuum.

The grant focused on building community demand for proven HIV prevention, care, and treatment services, taking a systems approach to scaling-up differentiated care and improving data utilization for quality improvement. Over the past 5 years, CIDRZ in partnership with the Ministry of Health implemented lifesaving interventions across the healthcare service cascade targeting communities and local health facilities up to District and Provincial Health Offices.

Having successfully strengthened the quality-of-service delivery in government health systems, by improving infrastructure, tightening logistics and providing direct service delivery and technical assistance to clinical, pharmacy, laboratory staff and improving the information management system, the five-year project came to an end effective 30th September, 2021.

During the dissemination meeting which was held to commemorate this milestone, CIDRZ Chief executive officer, Dr Izukanji Sikazwe said CIDRZ worked closely with MoH towards the attainment of the 90/90/90, UNAIDS targets for HIV epidemic control which were attained as of September 2020.

Dr Sikazwe said the targets aimed at ensuring that by the year 2020, 90% of people who are HIV infected would be diagnosed, further 90% of people who are diagnosed would be on antiretroviral treatment and 90% of those who receive antiretrovirals would be virally suppressed.

She noted that as the project had come to a close, she was pleased that CIDRZ had improved the quality-of-service delivery in government health systems by;

• Improving infrastructure,
• strengthening logistics supply chain management for HIV services,
• Providing direct clinical services and technical assistance where needed
• Scaling up electronic medical health record system management to the point of service interaction between the provider and the patient.

This was done through our 10 key focus areas including; Adult HIV (HIV Prevention, Testing, Care and Treatment), Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT), Pediatrics, Cervical Cancer, Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC), Pharmacy, Laborotary, Strategic Information (SI), Men’s Clinic and Key Populations said Dr Sikazwe.

Further she disclosed that when the programme started, it initially supported 36 districts in Eastern, Southern, Western and Lusaka provinces. She was proud to mention that the program successfully transitioned from direct service delivery support in 32 districts, to local provincial health offices and now only provide technical assistance in 4 districts in Lusaka Province.

This was a remarkable achievement that reflected the commitment and prioritization of improving HIV services by the provincial health offices that the programme had worked with said Dr Sikazwe. She expressed gratitude to all the supporting stakeholders.

“Indeed this could not have been achieved without the close collaboration with MOH through Provincial Health Offices and CDC to ensure that no gaps are created as we transitioned the support. We are grateful to the American People through PEPFAR and CDC for the unwavering support and we believe that adequate systems have been put in place to ensure continuity of HIV care to the Zambian people.” Said Dr Sikazwe.

Highlights from the Projects Focus Areas