CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report”: Threefold Increases in Population HIV Viral Load Suppression Among Men and Young Adults — Bukoba Municipal Council, Tanzania, 2014-2017
Duncan MacKellar of the CDC’s Division of Global HIV and TB at the Center for Global Health, and colleagues discuss the significance of “[a]chieving and sustaining viral load suppression (VLS)” among people living with HIV to reduce illness and the risk of disease transmission and describe the success of several interventions in Tanzania. The researchers write, “In Bukoba, Tanzania, scale-up of new testing, linkage to care, and retention on antiretroviral therapy interventions over 2.5 years helped increase VLS among HIV-positive persons approximately twofold overall (from 28.6% to 64.8%) and threefold among men (20.5% to 59.1%) and adults aged 18-29 years (15.6% to 56.7%). … During 2019, these interventions are being scaled up across Tanzania with support from the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to help increase VLS among all persons with HIV infection” (8/2).