Facing colliding epidemics of HIV, TB, COVID-19

Multipurpose `health events’

Dhirisha Naidoo, Chief of Party for BroadReach’s PEPFAR funded USAID program, APACE (Accelerating Programme Achievements to Control the Epidemic) in South Africa, which serves a population of about 4.3 million in South Africa, agrees. She also believes in collaboration and advocates for creative ideas to get patients back to clinics.

“Rather than rely on foot traffic, our programme initiated extensive, creative programmes to ramp up testing to find new cases as well as to ensure patients continued to have access to. For instance, our teams focused on increasing ‘index testing’ (testing the contacts of HIV+ people), offering extended hours services for clients to access treatment, and enrolling eligible patients onto specific medicine collection programmes.”

Naidoo is also advocating for creative measures to tackle the “colliding triple threat of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and COVID-19 simultaneously”. One proposed measure is to turn vaccination sites into multipurpose “health events” where patients can be screened and educated on a variety of illnesses. Naidoo says vaccination sites could offer pop-up pharmacies and video content on HIV, TB and cancer prevention, free coffees and other rewards for Pap Smears, TB testing and HIV screening. “We need to think laterally about how we can combine efforts to achieve greater public health outcomes in a shorter time,” says Naidoo.

Andy Karas, USAID  Southern Africa Mission Director says, “Through our and other PEPFAR implementing agencies’ support of HIV and TB care and treatment programmes, great strides had been made in reaching the 90-90-90 HIV treatment, however the COVID-19 pandemic hindered progress. We must now redouble our efforts to get back on track and tackle HIV, TB and COVID-19 together so that we can support people to build healthy and prosperous futures.”

Dr. John Blandford, CDC Country Director for South Africa echoes the call to get back on track. “As we face the colliding epidemics of HIV, TB and COVID-19, we need to collaborate and partner to ensure that testing, treatment and suppression remain our priorities. We need to increase our efforts to drive COVID-19 vaccinations to ensure that our immunocompromised populations are protected and safe from illness. Working with partners such as BroadReach and others, is key to fighting disease on the African continent and we will continue to increase our efforts to ensure our citizens can lead healthy and fulfilling lives.”

Since 2003 BroadReach Group has worked in over 30 countries to support governments, international NGOs, public and private sector to improve health outcomes for their populations. In South Africa alone, during the COVID-19 period BroadReach supported two South African provinces to oversee and manage their COVID-19 outbreaks over a population of 15 million people.

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