Since 2003, with ¿nancial and technical support from PEPFAR and other donors, the Government of Cote d’Ivoire (GoCI) has scaled up HIV services to 2,473 health facilities (HFs), or 91% of all HF in Cote d’Ivoire (CDI). As a result, the number of PLHIV on ART nationwide increased from 4,536 in 2004 to 292,252 in 2021. While the GoCI has made substantial progress toward controlling the HIV epidemic over the past two decades, significant gaps remain in the achievement of the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets. The disease burden is still high, and more than ten thousand of Ivorians do not have access to essential services; 34.1% of CLHIV and 27.8% of men living with HIV still do not know their status; and VLS remain low among children (81%) and PBFW (77%). To support GoCI in reaching UNAIDS 95-95-95 goals, PEPFAR has decided to focus its efforts on sites that cover 80% of the patients currently on ART. Thus, out of 2,473 HFs in Côte d'Ivoire, PEPFAR supports 516 HFs and the military sub-national primary unit, which cover 242,473 PLHIV, or 83% of all ART patients as of September 2022.
Sante Espoir Vie-Cote d’Ivoire, has been supporting the MoH since 2011 in comprehensive care of HIV/AIDS with funding from the CDC / PEPFAR. With its experience in prevention, care and treatment for PLHIV / OVC and their families, SEV-CI proposes through this project to address these challenges in 8 regions with 18 districts, 132 health facilities, 15 social centers.
The purpose of this project is to sustain progress towards achieving the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets in CDI by ensuring continuity of comprehensive client-centered HIV/TB services to PLHIV already on treatment and by using innovative approaches to increase access to HIV/TB prevention, care and treatment services for new clients, while strengthening the capacity of government entities, Community Base Organization (CBO) and Faith Based Organization (FBO) to conduct the program.
Specially, SEV-CI will focus interventions on five strategies:
- Strategy 1: Implement efficient HIV/TB case finding approaches to identify, link and
- initiate PLHIV sub-populations to treatment and prevention.
- Strategy 2: Implement comprehensive HIV/TB services for AGYW, OVC and other
priority populations.
- Strategy 3: Scale and sustain solutions to address barriers to HIV/TB treatment continuity for adults, children, KP and priority subpopulations.
- Strategy 4: Scale and sustain solutions to address barriers to VLC and VLS among specific populations.
- Strategy 5: Provide targeted technical assistance to MoH to facilitate transition and sustainability of HIV/TB services
In addition, SEV-CI will implement cross-cutting strategies that will apply to all of its approaches: 1) patient-centered approaches; 2) Data-driven programming for impact; and 3) using a continuous learning approach to use evidence to adapt and adopt innovative practices.
To ensure optimal implementation of the project, SEV-CI will set up a project team with coordination based in Abidjan and 5 regional units to provide closer assistance to governmental and non-governmental entities for project implementation. The project will build on SEV-CI previous experience to improve health systems capacity, including strengthen human resources at the regional, district, and sites levels as well and support improvement of HIV services and data quality and integrity to reach epidemic control by 2030.
SEV-CI will establish sub-agreements with nine (9) local experienced CBOs/FBOs to lead prevention, care, support and or treatment activities, both in Health Facilities and at community level. These include: MESSI; AIBEF; AFRICADEVCI; SAPHARM, COVIE; ELAN D’AMOUR, ARSIP, JELCOS, CENTRE PIM.
