Data System Will Accelerate South Africa’s Progress to HIV/AIDS Elimination.
A groundbreaking web-based system developed by a team that includes a School of Public Health researcher will make pertinent data accessible to healthcare practitioners involved in managing South Africa’s HIV epidemic in near-real time.
The first National CD4 /Viral Load Monitoring Dashboard, an online tool that monitors CD4 count and viral load in South Africa’s HIV-positive patients, will hasten the country’s response to meeting one of UNAIDS HIV elimination targets: for 90 percent of people on treatment to have a viral load fully suppressed by 2020.
Viral load is the best predictor of an HIV-positive patient’s response to treatment. The dashboard displays and analyzes data in a way that healthcare professionals involved in managing the epidemic can easily use. It provides information at a national, provincial, district, sub-district, and single facility level, as well as among adults and children.
The project was funded by PEPFAR and USAID and developed by Right to Care, South Africa’s National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) and the national Department of Health (DOH).
William MacLeod, assistant professor of global health, was a key participant in the project. He said the NHLS laboratory data is “a gold mine of epidemiological data that we can use to improve patient outcomes and our understanding of the HIV epidemic in South Africa.
“The online dashboards provide facility managers with a snapshot of treatment outcomes at their facility,” he explained. “In addition, we have created weekly facility-level reports of viral load test results highlighting patients with unsuppressed viral load, so they don’t slip through the cracks and can get the follow-up attention they need.”
Sergio Carmona, pathologist at the NHLS, added, “The better we understand how patients are being managed, the better control we have of the epidemic. It will also help to swiftly allocate resources where needed, such as infrastructure, nurses, and doctors, monitor ‘hot spots’ and expedite the right responses, as well as evaluate the effectiveness of interventions to contain the epidemic.”
Right to Care hosted the national launch of the new dashboard in November, with training of national and provincial stakeholders from the DOH and representatives of all implementing partners. Training in the provinces will take place from January to March 2017 and in districts from April to June 2017.
It is estimated that there are nearly 6.75 million people infected with HIV in South Africa, with 3.3 million on treatment. Of those who have accessed viral load testing, more than 80 percent are suppressed.