Successful antiretroviral project supporting links between health services and the community
30 March 2007
The Antiretroviral Treatment Community Education and Referral (ACER) project was launched in 2004, and provides evidence and examples for developing larger-scale interventions in support of ARV treatment. It is successfully increasing uptake of testing and ARV treatment in Zambia thanks to a strategy of building strong partnerships between community organisations that operate within the target communities. It is also working nationally with the Ministry of Health to influence policy and implementation, and is currently cited in Zambia’s draft strategic framework on HIV and AIDS, sexually transmitted infections and tuberculosis.
ACER believes that community education, referral and support for ARV treatment improves uptake of voluntary testing and counselling, prevention and treatment. Until everyone who needs ARV treatment is receiving it equally and without difficulty, there will continue to be a need to work on developing ‘treatment-friendly’ communities, the project says.
ACER has chalked up achievements in all of its key areas of intervention. Through education and training, it has increased health literacy on ARV treatment and improved health-seeking behaviour. It is successfully tackling stigma and discrimination through efforts targeted at community stakeholders. And it has fostered community involvement in ARV treatment, developing and strengthening a two-way referral system between health services and the community.
Now that more people in Zambia are freely accessing ARVs, HIV is beginning to be regarded as a chronic condition like any other. The challenge is to support adherence and increase prevention awareness among people living with HIV to reduce the number of new infections.
The project has encouraged the active participation of the community in providing home-based care and support to people living with HIV. Innovations include support groups for people on treatment and treatment buddies – friends or relatives who give day-to-day encouragement to those taking ARV treatment. As a result of this support, the ARV treatment clinics that service the ACER communities are now able to keep treatment adherence at 90 per cent.
Guaranteeing continued funding for partners to carry out community mobilisation and treatment education in Zambia is one of the greatest challenges facing ACER programme. The project still needs to reach more people to ensure ongoing community mobilisation. Further funding will make sure that gains made in community awareness and the uptake and use of voluntary counselling and treatment (VCT), ARV treatment and HIV prevention will not lose momentum.
