Juba 14 September 2018 – WHO in partnership with the Ministry of Health are strengthening capacity to improve HIV programme interventions to achieve the national 90-90-90 targets in South Sudan.

Over the last decades, South Sudan has continued to face humanitarian crises of varying nature and intensity weakening the health systems and thus hindering progressive coverage of health services including HIV. 

Currently, a large gap exists between the number of people who have HIV, those who are aware of their infection, those receiving effective treatment and those virally suppressed. 

To improve quality of care, address gaps and increase efficiencies along the continuum for better outcomes of treatment, WHO held a five-day training workshop on HIV treatment cascade.

The approach aims to collect information within the cascade analysis for an informed decision making.

The HIV treatment cascade—also referred to as the HIV care continuum—is a system to monitor the number of individuals living with HIV who are actually receiving medical care and the treatment they need.

“The HIV treatment cascade is a convenient tool for assessing integrated health service delivery for people living with HIV”, says Dr Moses Mutebi Nganda, Medical Officer at WHO South Sudan.  The tool tracks the progress individuals make from the initial diagnosis to achieving a very low level of HIV in the body.

Health workers including medical doctors/ clinical officers, nurses, counselors, pharmacist and monitoring and evaluation (M&E) officers reviewed and identified the HIV care cascades, programmatic gaps and support facilities with practical approaches to strengthening M&E systems. 

The current coverage of services is inadequate, and the rate of expansion is too slow to achieve the 2020 national 90-90-90 targets, says Dr Victora Achut, National HIV/AIDS Programme Manager at the Ministry of Health. 

The ultimate aim of the National HIV treatment programme is for people living with HIV to be virally suppressed. For this to happen, people living with HIV need to be diagnosed promptly, linked to care, initiated on antiretroviral treatment (ART) and continuously adhere to medication, Dr Achut highlighted.

The Ministry of Health with support from WHO and other partners has recently updated HIV Patient Monitoring tools and guide based on the global 2015 Consolidated Strategic Information (SI) Guideline for HIV in the Health Sector. 

The HIV data tools have been integrated into the District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2), for regular reporting across partners. The tools will be used to collect data on indicators to track and monitor the HIV response nationally.

WHO with funding from the Global Fund to Fight Tuberculosis, AIDS and Malaria (GFTAM) has been supporting the HIV/AIDS programme in South Sudan, says Mr Evans Liyosi, the acting WHO Representative for South Sudan. WHO will continue to support the Ministry of Health and partners for a comprehensive and sustainable HIV/ AIDS response so that people living with HIV or at risk of HIV infection are offered the services they need.