Through close collaboration with the Ugandan Ministry of Health, the investigators plan to provide PrEP for HIV-negative members of HIV serodiscordant couples by launching PrEP delivery within 12 public ART clinics in Kampala, Uganda. Intervention delivery will be launched in a staggered fashion among clinics through a stepped wedge cluster randomized trial providing a rigorous research opportunity to measure the effect of the intervention on PrEP and ART initiation and adherence. To measure these outcomes using clinic records and biomarkers, the program will enroll approximately 1440 HIV serodiscordant couples. Additionally, the program will collect qualitative and quantitative data to determine if PrEP-taking is a modeled behavior that facilitates ART use and characterize the way that PrEP and ART use interact within couples and estimate the programmatic costs of the integrated PrEP and ART strategy.
Study Type
OBSERVATIONAL
Enrollment
1,381
PrEP will be introduced into clinics according to Uganda national guidelines using a stepped wedge design. Uganda guidelines recommend any tenofovir disoproxil fumarate (TDF) containing medication be used for PrEP; this includes emtricitabine (FTC)/TDF, lamivudine (3TC)/TDF or TDF alone.
ART medication will be provided according to Uganda national guidelines for persons living with HIV.
Makerere University
Kampala, Uganda
Number of HIV-positive members of a discordant partnership who initiate ART
Measure ART initiation of the HIV-positive member of the couple
Time frame: Up to 24 months
HIV viral load suppression of HIV-positive members of a discordant partnership
ART adherence by measuring HIV viral load of the HIV-positive member of the couple
Time frame: Up to 24 months
Number of HIV-negative members of a discordant partnership who initiate PrEP
Measure PrEP initiation of the HIV-negative member of the couple
Time frame: Up to 24 months
PrEP adherence of HIV-negative members of a discordant partnership
Measure PrEP adherence, among HIV-negative members of a discordant partnership who initiated PrEP, by self-report and tenofovir drug level testing.
Time frame: Up to 24 months
PrEP-taking as a modeled behavior
Measure the degree to which PrEP-taking behavior is modeled by HIV-negative partners and the degree to which it is witnessed by HIV-positive partners using questionnaires developed for this purpose.
Time frame: Up to 24 months
Facilitators and barriers to use of ART and PrEP
Mixed methods assessment of how integrated PrEP and ART is 1) used among couples and 2) implemented by health care providers using qualitative interviews and questionnaires. These data will be aggregated to understand the facilitators and barriers to use of ART and PrEP.
Time frame: Up to 24 months
Programmatic costs of providing integrated PrEP and ART to HIV serodiscordant couples
Conduct micro-costing, cost-effectiveness, and budget impact analyses to estimate the programmatic costs of providing integrated PrEP and ART to HIV serodiscordant couples.
Time frame: Up to 24 months
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