PEPFAR Technical Considerations for COP/ROP 2016

PEPFAR Technical Considerations for COP/ROP 2016 were released at the beginning of February 2016. Within the document, PEPFAR reiterates its endorsement of the UNAIDS Fast-Track 90-90-90 targets for 2020 and highlights the importance of implementing collaborative TB/HIV activities as key to achieving these targets. It urges PEPFAR teams to ensure universal ART coverage (100%) for HIV-infected TB patients, through the support of integrated models of HIV/TB care to detect HIV-associated TB and provide ART in TB clinics. It further points out that viral suppression is only achievable if people living with HIV are alive, on ART, and virally suppressed. If PLHIV become ill and die of TB, the question of viral suppression becomes irrelevant. Furthermore, TB is known to worsen HIV progression and thereby leads to higher viral load. Hence the scale-up of TB screening and TB case-finding, IPT and TB infection control are key to contributing to long-term viral suppression for PLHIV on ART.