I ACT Project Update

Over the past few months there has been an emphasis placed on the integration of the Adherence Clubs and I ACT (Integrated Access to Care and Treatment) projects. This integration focuses on creating a patient – centric model with an emphasis on improved patient retention from the time of HIV diagnosis all the way through to being initiated on treatment and eventually becoming stable on treatment.

In this regard the Global Fund grant for Adherence Clubs has undergone a restructuring phase that has made provision for the integration of I ACT in to the model. This means that an allocation has been made to employ 11 I ACT facilitators under the Global Fund grant to be placed in high burden health care facilities with the intention of recruiting newly diagnosed participants in to IACT and ensuring that these individuals complete all 6 I ACT sessions over a 6 month period. After completion these individuals can be transferred to an Adherence Club group in the same healthcare facility should they be stable on ART and have a suppressed Viral Load thereby improving linkage to care and increasing patient retention in the health care facility.

Currently all 11 facilitators have been placed in their respective facilities (6 in Tshwane district, 4 in Nkangala district and 1 in Gert Sibande district). During the month of May 8 of these Global Fund I ACT facilitators were actively implementing IACT in health care facilities and the initial data looks positive.

The data collected from the month of May 2015 shows a positive initial number of I ACT groups and members registered. Based on this we estimate positive growth over the following months bringing us closer to our overarching goal of improving health outcomes in terms of linkage to and retention in care.