Tanzania adopted this recommendation known as test-and-treat policy in However, programmatic implementation of this policy has not been assessed since its initiation. The objective of the study was to assess the impact of this policy in Tanzania. This was a cross-sectional study among PLHIV aged 15 years and older using routinely collected program data. The dependent variable was interruption in treatment IIT , defined as no clinical contact for at least 90 days after the last clinical appointment.
The main independent variable was test-and-treat policy status which categorized PLHIV into the before and after groups. Co-variates were age, sex, facility type, clinical stage, CD4 count, ART duration, and body mass index. The associations were assessed using the generalized estimating equation with inverse probability weighting. Additionally, higher odds of experiencing IIT were observed among younger adults, males, and those with advanced HIV disease.
Demographic and clinical status variables were associated with IIT, as well as the test-and-treat policy. To achieve epidemic control, programmatic adjustments on continuity of treatment may are needed to complement the programmatic implementation of the policy. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Data Availability: The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from the Tanzania Ministry of Health. Data can be obtained by contacting the Permanent Secretary at: P. Box Dodoma. Email address:ps afya. Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist. Tanzania, an Eastern African country with a population of 63 million people [ 2 ], has not been spared from the devastating impact of the HIV epidemic.
Furthermore, WHO published additional guidelines in to recommend rapid ART initiation in the era of test-and-treat policy which defined rapid initiation as ART initiation within seven days from the day of HIV diagnosis [ 7 ].
