Gina Dallabetta

Containing HIV/AIDS in India: the unfinished agenda

Indias HIV epidemic is not yet contained and prevention in populations most at risk (high-risk groups) needs to be enhanced and expanded. HIV prevalence as measured through surveillance of antenatal and sexually transmitted disease clinics is the chief source of information on HIV in India, but these data cannot provide real insight into where transmission is occurring or guide programme strategy. The factors that influence the Indian epidemic are the size, behaviours, and disease burdens of high-risk groups, their interaction with bridge populations and general population sexual networks, and migration and mobility of both bridge populations and high-risk groups. The interplay of these forces has resulted in substantial epidemics in several pockets of many Indian states that could potentially ignite subepidemics in other, currently low prevalence, parts of the country. The growth of HIV, unless contained, could have serious consequences for Indias development. Indias national response to HIV began in 1992 and has shown early success in some states. The priority is to build on those successes by increasing prevention coverage of high-risk groups to saturation level, enhancing access and uptake of care and treatment services, ensuring systems and capacity for evidence-based programming, and building in-country technical and managerial capacity.

Learning about scale, measurement and community mobilisation: reflections on the implementation of the Avahan HIV/AIDS initiative in India

Debates have raged in development for decades about the appropriateness of participatory approaches and the degree to which they can be managed, scaled and measured. The Avahan programme confronted these issues over the last 7 years and concludes that it is advantageous to manage scaled community mobilisation processes so that participation evolves and programming on the ground is shaped by what is learnt through implementation. The donor (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and its partners determined a standard set of programme activities that were implemented programme-wide but evolved with input from communities on the ground. Difficulties faced in monitoring and measurement in Avahan may be characteristic of similar efforts to measure community mobilisation in a scaled programme, and ultimately these challenges informed methods that were useful. The approach the programme undertook for learning and changing, the activities it built into the HIV prevention programme, and its logic model and measurement tools, may be relevant in other public health settings seeking to integrate community mobilisation.

Navigating the swampy lowland: a framework for evaluating the effect of community mobilisation in female sex workers in Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative

Background Few models of how community mobilisation works have been elaborated in the scientific literature, and evaluation of the impact of these programmes on HIV and other health outcomes is extremely limited. Avahan, the India AIDS Initiative, has been implementing community mobilisation as part of its prevention programming with groups of high-risk individuals across six states since 2005. Purpose To articulate a programme theory and evaluation framework for evaluation of Avahans approach to community mobilisation among female sex workers in four southern states in India. Methods The authors use a goal-based evaluation approach to describe the programme goals and an underlying programme theory that specifies how the programme is expected to work. Using multilevel structural equation modelling with propensity score matching, the evaluation will compare what is observed in the data with the predicted relationships specified by the model. Results The Avahan model of community mobilisation posits that meaningful participation in high-risk group intervention, structural intervention and organisational development activities leads to identification, collectivisation and ownership, which in turn leads to improved programme outcomes. Strong community groups and an enabling environment reinforce social norm and behaviour change outcomes and lead to sustained impact. Discussion Specifying an explicit programme theory can aid in the evaluation of complex interventions, especially when the evaluation design is observational. In addition to articulating Avahans community mobilisation approach in a model that can be tested, we recommend some specific measures and methods that could be used to improve evaluation efforts in the future.

The HIV prevention cascade: integrating theories of epidemiological, behavioural, and social science into programme design and monitoring

Theories of epidemiology, health behaviour, and social science have changed the understanding of HIV prevention in the past three decades. The HIV prevention cascade is emerging as a new approach to guide the design and monitoring of HIV prevention programmes in a way that integrates these multiple perspectives. This approach recognises that translating the efficacy of direct mechanisms that mediate HIV prevention (including prevention products, procedures, and risk-reduction behaviours) into population-level effects requires interventions that increase coverage. An HIV prevention cascade approach suggests that high coverage can be achieved by targeting three key components: demand-side interventions that improve risk perception and awareness and acceptability of prevention approaches; supply-side interventions that make prevention products and procedures more accessible and available; and adherence interventions that support ongoing adoption of prevention behaviours, including those that do and do not involve prevention products. Programmes need to develop delivery platforms that ensure these interventions reach target populations, to shape the policy environment so that it facilitates implementation at scale with high quality and intensity, and to monitor the programme with indicators along the cascade.

Rolling out new biomedical HIV prevention tools: what can be learned from Avahan, the India AIDS initiative?

More than 30 years after HIV was first identified as a disease, with disastrous consequences for many subpopulations in most countries and for entire populations in some African countries, it continues to occupy centre stage among the worlds many global health challenges. Prevention still remains the primary long-term focus. New biomedical tools such as pre-exposure propyhlaxis (PrEP) and treatment hold great promise for select groups such as key populations (KPs) who are critical to transmission dynamics, and serodiscordant couples. Programs delivering these new tools will need to layer them over existing services, with potential modifications for increased and sustained engagement between health services and beneficiaries owing to the nature of the interventions. Avahan, an HIV prevention intervention for KPs in six states in India, achieved population-level impact with conventional prevention programming, which, however, required high program-beneficiary engagement. Avahans implementation strategy included articulating clear service definitions and denominator-based targets; establishing routine data systems with regular, multilevel supervision that allowed for cross-learning across the program; and developing a cadre of frontline workers through KP peer outreach workers who addressed structural issues and provided viable and sustainable mechanisms for sustained interaction between health services and KPs. This basic prevention implementation infrastructure was used to expand clinical services over time. Many of the lessons from programs such as Avahan can be applied to KP programs that are expanding service scope, including PrEP and treatment.

Ethical considerations in global HIV phylogenetic research.

Phylogenetic analysis of pathogens is an increasingly powerful way to reduce the spread of epidemics, including HIV. As a result, phylogenetic approaches are becoming embedded in public health and research programmes, as well as outbreak responses, presenting unique ethical, legal, and social issues that are not adequately addressed by existing bioethics literature. We formed a multidisciplinary working group to explore the ethical issues arising from the design of, conduct in, and use of results from HIV phylogenetic studies, and to propose recommendations to minimise the associated risks to both individuals and groups. We identified eight key ethical domains, within which we highlighted factors that make HIV phylogenetic research unique. In this Review, we endeavoured to provide a framework to assist researchers, public health practitioners, and funding institutions to ensure that HIV phylogenetic studies are designed, done, and disseminated in an ethical manner. Our conclusions also have broader relevance for pathogen phylogenetics.

Cost-Effectiveness of Interventions to Prevent HIV Acquisition

Because of the severe health consequences of human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and the costs of lifelong treatment, inexpensive and effective HIV prevention is bound to be cost-effective. But what constitutes HIV prevention, and can it be affordable and effective? The use of condoms that cost a few cents and prevent a young adult from acquiring a chronic and fatal disease will, over time, be cost saving. Avoiding sex with someone who is infected with HIV/AIDS will be even more so. What can be done to get people to use condoms? What can be done to facilitate the avoidance of risky sexual encounters? Additional efficacious biomedical tools have become available, but similar questions persist: What can be done to get young women at risk to use oral truvada effectively as preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and to get young men at risk to be circumcised? The answers to these questions will determine what packages of prevention are essential, how much prevention programs should cost, and how cost-effective they can be. This chapter reviews current evidence about the efficacy, effectiveness, and costs of HIV/AIDS prevention products, programs, and approaches. HISTORY OF THE HIV/AIDS PANDEMIC AND PREVENTION INITIATIVES

P6.038 Technical Support For Clinical Services of a Large Scale HIV Prevention Programme For Key Populations in India

Background Avahan was a focused HIV prevention programme implemented across six states in India by seven lead agencies through 129 local NGOs, providing services to 321,000 individuals from key populations. Clinical services for STIs were an important component of Avahan’s intervention package. Methods Technical support was provided by a centralised agency to lead agencies’ STI staff who directly supervised NGO clinical services. The approach during the first phase (2005–2009) of ‘build and operate’ included developing standardised guidelines, training, quality assurance and quality improvement, and using monitoring data to improve the programme. During the final phase (2009–2013) of transitioning to government support, the strategy was to ensure that services were restructured to align with national guidelines, generate and provide evidence towards advocacy for improvement of the national programme. Results In 2005–2009, 431,434 individuals made 2.7 million clinic visits. The annual average number of clinic visits by individuals increased from 1.6 to 3.5, and the proportion of visits for STI syndromes decreased from 52.5% to 11.8%. Verbal screening for tuberculosis (TB) identified 6,879 TB suspects of whom 1,565 were diagnosed with active TB. The quality monitoring of Avahan clinics showed an increased score from 2.21 to 3.82 (on a scale of 0–5). The introduction of a point of care test for syphilis doubled the proportion of clinic attendees screened from 2007 to 2009. In the transition phase, revised operational guidelines were developed to align with national guidelines and a nurses’ training was conducted to address ‘task shifting’. The national programme adapted the Avahan guidelines for STI management among key populations. Conclusion A centralised technical support agency has a pivotal role in ensuring standardised and high quality services. Large scale and national programmes would benefit from collaborating with independent technical units to outsource some of the work of implementation.