The USAID Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control project is designed to break through remaining, persistent barriers to reaching HIV prevention and treatment goals and promote self-reliant management of national HIV programs.
Project Overview
The USAID Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control project will deliver technical assistance and direct service delivery that are effective in scaling and sustaining HIV services and systems for long-term epidemic control. The project will focus on community-based HIV case finding and treatment linkage, and case management to support the needs of people living with HIV clients and ensure treatment adherence.
Objectives
- Attain and maintain HIV epidemic control among key populations, including people who inject drugs, sex workers, prisoners, and men who have sex with men;
- Improve program management and financial systems to scale and sustain government response to the HIV epidemic; and
- Support the transition of community-based service delivery to capable local partners.
Challenges and Solutions
The three countries of Tajikistan, the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan each face obstacles in achieving the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) “Fast Track – Ending the AIDS Epidemic by 2030” 95-95-95 goals of 95% of those with HIV knowing their status, 95% initiating antiretroviral therapy, and 95% attaining viral suppression. Challenges include stigma and discrimination that marginalize key populations and people living with HIV and limit access to and uptake of HIV-related services; low medication-assisted treatment coverage for people who inject drugs; and limited epidemiological data on the size and location of key populations to help strategically target service and other regulatory barriers that limit countries’ abilities to improve cascade performance. As a result, new case finding among key populations is low and linkage and uptake of and retention throughout the available HIV treatment and care services is limited.
The USAID Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control project technical assistance model is based on four mutually-reinforcing elements: 1) a focus on speed, scale and standards to rapidly introduce new and proven innovations and then quickly bring them to scale; 2) customized support to the differentiated needs of countries and target populations; 3) tracking progress and outcomes daily, weekly and quarterly to enable adaptive management and rapid course correction; and 4) an increasing transition of technical assistance/direct service delivery to regional and local partners to support countries’ journey to self-reliance.
Expected Results
To reach its goal of a reduced HIV burden in Central Asia, the project expects to achieve the following results:
- Increase detection of HIV cases by expanding active case finding to new and existing target groups and expanding different testing modalities and strategies.
- Contribute to HIV prevention by expanding Pre-exposure Prophylaxis to new groups and strengthening linkage to medication-assisted treatment services.
- Increase treatment initiation and viral load suppression through differentiated service delivery models for antiretroviral therapy provision and community-based case management.
- Improve all elements of the cascade by instituting a social behavior change strategy to improve testing, understanding about Undetectable=Untransmittable.
- Strengthen partner systems and capacities for collection and analysis of programmatic data to improve data for decision-making and cascade outcomes analysis.
- Encourage sustainability of interventions by providing national-level technical assistance on health system-level issues, such as HIV financing and social contracting, and strengthening the role of civil society organizations.
- Work with local stakeholders to support community-led monitoring to ensure quality of services, key populations representation and continuum of care.
PROJECT DURATION: April 2020, April, 2024
REGIONAL BUDGET: $20,315,000 (subject to annual approval process; Kazakhstan’s budget: $3,165,000; Tajikistan’s budget: $8,070,000; Kyrgyz Republic’s budget: $9,080,000)
CONTACTS: Khorlan Izmailova, USAID/Central Asia, email: kizmailova@usaid.gov
Saidmumin Kholov, USAID Tajikistan Office, e-mail: skholov@usaid.gov
Aida Estebesova, USAID/Kyrgyz Republic, email: aestebesova@usaid.gov
IMPLEMENTING ORGANIZATIONS: The USAID Meeting Targets and Maintaining Epidemic Control project is led by FHI 360 with core partners Population Services International, Palladium, Right to Care, and Gobee Group.