BACKGROUND Little information exists on the technical assistance needs of local indigenous organizations charged with managing HIV care and treatment programs funded by the US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This paper describes the methods used to adapt the Primary Care Assessment Tool (PCAT) framework, which has successfully strengthened HIV primary care services in the U...

This qualitative study investigated the process of engagement in HIV medical care from the perspective of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). In-depth interviews were conducted with 76 participants in six cities. All participants were considered underserved because of histories of substance use, mental illness, incarceration, homelessness, or cultural barriers to the traditional health care sy...

The Pool region of the Republic of Congo is an isolated, conflict-affected area with under-resourced and poorly functioning health care services. Despite significant AIDS-related mortality and morbidity in this area, and a national level commitment to universal HIV care, HIV has been largely neglected. In 2005 Médecins Sans Frontières decided to introduce HIV care activities. However, in this s...

Background The National HIV/AIDS Strategy has set ambitious goals to improve the epidemic in the United States. However, there is a paucity of usable program-level benchmarks tied to population-level epidemiologic goals. Our objective was to define tangible benchmarks for annual rates along the care continuum that are likely to translate to meaningful reductions in incidence. Methods We used ...

CD4 counts and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) load testing are essential components of HIV care, and making these tests available in resource-limited settings is critical to the roll-out of HIV treatment globally. Until recently, the evidence supporting the importance of laboratory monitoring in resource-limited settings was lacking, but there is now a consensus emerging that testing should...

Hispanic clinicians in Texas, United States of America, and in the neighboring state of Nuevo Leon, Mexico, were surveyed to determine their educational needs in the area of HIV/AIDS. Two-thirds of the 74 Texan and 22% of the 104 Mexican physicians queried had seen at least one HIV/AIDS patient in the previous year. The majority of the respondents were primary care physicians who: 1) were in pr...

Inadequate uptake of testing for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains a primary bottleneck toward universal access to treatment and care, and is an obstacle to realizing the potential of new interventions for preventing HIV infection, including treatment for prevention and preexposure prophylaxis. HIV self-testing offers an approach to scaling up testing that could be high impact, low cos...

Vietnam, like many other developing countries experiences over whelming challenges related to Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infections, including significant stigma and discrimination of people who are affected by HIV infections. HIV pandemic has resulted in increased numbers of Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC). Different strategies are required in addressing these challenges. The aim...

Despite tremendous advances in care for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and increased funding for treatment, morbidity and mortality due to HIV/AIDS in developing countries remains unacceptably high. A major contributing factor is that >800 million people remain chronically undernourished globally, and the HIV epidemic largely overlaps with populations already experiencing low diet...

We sought to understand patient perceptions of the emergency department/urgent care (ED/UC) HIV diagnosis experience as well as factors that may promote or discourage linkage to HIV care. We conducted in-depth interviews with patients (n=24) whose HIV infection was diagnosed in the ED/UC of a public hospital in San Francisco at least six months prior and who linked to HIV care at the hospital H...