Measuring the Impact of Integrating Maternal and Newborn HIV Testing With Childhood Immunization Services

HIV testing commodities were replenished directly (outside of the government supply) in the event of a stock-out by study staff. Treatment facilities were visited monthly to assess stock levels, and facility staff could contact study staff when stock levels were low.

District health officials met with facility staff to remind them of the current HIV testing policies for mothers and newborns in Zambia. Current policy states mothers with unknown or previously negative status should be tested every 3 months until the infant is 18 months of age. HIV-exposed newborns should be tested at 6 weeks and 6 months.

"Facility staff were instructed to examine the maternal HIV status on the under-five (U-5) or antenatal care (ANC) card for all infants attending their first U-5 visit and do the following:~* If marked Confirmed Exposed (CE), the health care worker conducted the DBS test on the infant only.~* If marked, Mother Status Unknown (MSU) or Confirmed Not Exposed (CNE) the mother or caregiver was asked if the mother had ever tested HIV-positive. If yes, a DBS was done on the infant only. If no, the mother was offered an HIV antibody test in an opt-out manner."

The evaluation team worked with facility staff to identify efficient allocations of staff and tailor the order of services. A key component of the operational optimization was a new patient triaging approach that sorted patient U-5 cards into bins and used separate queues for three types of patients: 1) first visit infants (six weeks), 2) second visit or later infants who required immunizations and 3) infants who were scheduled to only receive growth monitoring.

Health facility staff were instructed to communicate all aspects of the Comprehensive Intervention during ANC appointments, in-facility child birth deliveries, and postnatal care (PNC) visits. Additionally, at six week immunization visits, mothers and caregivers received group counseling on opt-out HIV screening service and the importance of regular HIV screening for mother and child health. Finally, the research team engaged Safe Motherhood Action Groups (SMAGs), community health workers (CHWs), and active neighborhood health committee members to further increase awareness in facility catchment areas. These community members completed low-touch community sensitization over changes that would be made to U-5 services.