Accelerating Children’s HIV/AIDS Treatment (ACT)

Overview

In 2016, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF) awarded the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) a two-year project focused on HIV prevention, care and treatment for adolescents. This project, titled the Accelerating Children’s HIV/AIDS Treatment (ACT) Adolescent Project, encompasses three separate projects in Kenya, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe, all focused on adolescent HIV services; including prevention, identification, treatment, and retention. The Kenya project includes provision of technical support at the national and county level, as well direct service implementation in 20 health facilities in Homabay County.

The Incentives Intervention is a non-monetary rewards and recognition intervention started in October 2016 recognizing and rewarding adolescents and health care providers (HCPs) within the 20 supported sites who had achieved great progress in key areas. These key areas included: improved adherence, retention, and viral suppression. The goal of Incentives Intervention was to improve adolescents’ treatment outcomes by motivating them to commit to their own health through appointment keeping and adherence to medication, in order to ultimately achieve viral suppression. The HCP incentives were provided to motivate HCPs (including nurses, clinical officers, community health volunteers and peer educators) who worked tirelessly in the supported health facilities to ensure that adolescents received high quality health services in order to achieve viral suppression.