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Tracking People Living with HIV in Loss to Follow Up in Central Brazil: A Call for Attention to Health Services

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Abstract

Despite the effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy (ART), human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection remains a global public health concern. However, weaknesses in its management regarding access to integrated HIV care include treatment gaps and loss to follow-up (LTFU) from antiretroviral treatment (ART). This study aimed to characterize the epidemiological and clinical profiles of people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHA) in LTFU from HIV care in Campo Grande, Central Brazil. This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted between January 2021 and April 2022 using secondary data from PLHA who had LTFU in Campo Grande. A total of 852 patients with PLHA were included in this study. The majority of participants in LTFU were male (63.1%), had a CD4 cell count > 200 cells/mm3 (68.2%), and had been treated for ≥ 3 months (86.4%). Only 287 (33.7%) participants had undetectable HIV viral load. Of the total number of patients who returned to treatment during the study period, 448 (54.3%) were LTFU-positive. The tracking strategy was not applied to 556 (65.26%) patients, and 44.4% of the participants had been in spontaneous demand. These results highlight the relevance of patient-centered interventions and the need to ensure early treatment and promote retention in care systems with consequent viral suppression, impacting the healthcare indicators of the population, with emphasis on health managers and stakeholders in HIV care.

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All relevant and original data presented in this study have been included in this article.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Projeto A Hora é Agora for systematizing the data with the Municipal Health Secretariat (MHS) of Campo Grande/MS—BRAZIL, to the MHS for accessing the data, to the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul for the Graduate Program in Infectious and Parasitic Disease, and to our research team at the Laboratory of Clinical Immunology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Secretaria Municipal de Saúde de Campo Grande (SESAU), Campo Grande, MS, Brazil

    Andréia Souza Pinto da Silva, Roberto Braz Júnior & Giordana Manzeppi Faccin

  2. Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul, Campo Grande, MS, Brazil

    Carolina Amianti, Larissa Melo Bandeira & Ana Rita Coimbra Motta-Castro

  3. Fiocruz Mato Grosso do Sul, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz/Ministério da Saúde, Campo Grande, Brazil

    Ana Rita Coimbra Motta-Castro

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  1. Andréia Souza Pinto da Silva
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  2. Carolina Amianti
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  4. Roberto Braz Júnior
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Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: ASPS ARCMC; Organized the data: ASPS CA ARCMC RBJ GMF LMB; Analyzed the data: ASPS CA ARCMC; Wrote the paper: ASPS ARCMCCA CA LMB. All the authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Carolina Amianti or Larissa Melo Bandeira.

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 The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Approval

The study was reviewed and approved by the Comitê de Ética em Pesquisa from Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso do Sul (CEP/UFMS), an ethics Committee on Human Research, Protocol Number CAAE 52437121.4.0000.0021.

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da Silva, A.S.P., Amianti, C., Bandeira, L.M. et al. Tracking People Living with HIV in Loss to Follow Up in Central Brazil: A Call for Attention to Health Services. AIDS Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-024-04337-8

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