Sunday, May 11, 2025
5/11/2025
GH17-1769 Building The Capacity of Western Provincial Medical Office of Zambia - Western Province has a projected population of 1,024,505 in 2017 (CSO, 2010). The province is predominantly rural. The deep sandy terrain and flood plains make it difficult for patients to access health services, monitoring of program implementation and distribution of HIV logistics and drug. The HIV prevalence is at 15.4% (ZDHS 2013-14). Key HIV drivers are MTCT, MCPs, low and inconsistent condom use, low levels of MC, alcohol and substance abuse, and mobility. In FY 2017, five scale up and 58 sustained sites will be supported. Other challenges include; low population density, inadequate skilled personnel and infrastructure. In an effort to support the Zambia National HIV/AIDS Strategic Framework and National Health Strategic Plan (NASF), the United States Government through CDC has been providing direct financial support through annual Cooperative Agreements (CoAg) with WPMO. The financial support is aimed at building capacity of WPMO to provide comprehensive and sustainable HIV/AIDS prevention, care, support, and treatment services. To this end, WPMO in FY 2017 will continue to implement significantly proven program areas that are tailored at ensuring that 90% of PLHIV know their status, 90% are linked and initiated on treatment and 90% of those on treatment are virally suppressed. This will be done through the supported 15 scale up and sustained District Medical Offices (DMOs). The program areas will be; PMTCT, Condom and Other Prevention, VMMC, HTS , TB/HIV, Laboratory Infrastructure, Strategic Information, HIV care, support and treatment for both adult and paediatric, and Health System Strengthening. WPMO will continue to provide leadership and oversight for implementation of core HIV combination prevention, clinical and laboratory services. Provide high quality health information from a harmonized monitoring and evaluation system in order to ensure that all HIV clients are identified, linked, treated and retained in care. Additionally, WPMO will support mentorship and innovative capacity building strategies such as e-Learning and on-job training models in the areas of HIV prevention, treatment and health systems strengthening at the facility, community, district, and provincial levels. HIV services will target Commercial Sex Workers, Prisoners, Adolescents, Pregnant and Breast Feeding Women, PLHIV, fish and rice traders, road construction and lumbering workers and communities living around construction and lumbering camps. PITC will be scaled up in IPD, OPD, TB, ANC, Cancer, STI clinics and nutrition centers. WPMO will prioritize Index-case tracking of persons enrolled in ART, scale up of couples counselling and testing, and linking all identified HIV positive to treatment while negative individuals will be linked to other reproductive health services. WPMO will support dissemination and operationalization of the 2016 national ART guidelines, implement “test and treat” in at least 50% of the scale up and sustained sites by the end of FY 2017. Viral Load testing and accreditation of ART sites will be prioritized too. WPMO will intensify TB case finding in PLHIV, prisons, and contacts of TB smear positives and IPT will be rolled out to all supported sites. ART coverage among pregnant, breast feeding women and their infants will also be expanded. MBPs adherence to treatment systems and retention till final outcomes are established will be improved. Kaoma District Hospital and Lewanika General Hospital will be supported to attain the ART Centre of Excellency standard. Support systems (specimen transportation, data management through use of EHR system and QI/QC activities) will be improved in all program areas.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).