BMJ Global Health最新文献

Introduction: We describe the 24-month incidence of Dolutegravir (DTG)-containing antiretroviral treatment (ART) initiation since its introduction in 2019 in West Africa.

Methods: We included all patients aged 0-24 years on ART from nine clinics in Côte d'Ivoire (n=4), Ghana, Nigeria, Mali, Benin, and Burkina Faso. Baseline varied by clinic and was defined as date of first DTG prescription; patients were followed up until database closure/death/loss to follow-up (LTFU, no visit ≥7 months), whichever came first. We computed the cumulative incidence function for DTG initiation; associated factors were explored in a shared frailty model, accounting for clinic heterogeneity.

Results: Since 2019, 3350 patients were included; 47.2% were female; 78.9% had been on ART ≥12 months. Median baseline age was 12.5 years (IQR 8.4-15.8). Median follow-up was 14 months (IQR 7-22). The overall cumulative incidence of DTG initiation reached 22.7% (95% CI 21.3 to 24.2) and 56.4% (95% CI 54.4 to 58.4) at 12 and 24 months, respectively. In univariate analyses, those aged <5 years and female were overall less likely to switch. Adjusted on ART line and available viral load (VL) at baseline, females aged >10 years were less likely to initiate DTG compared with males of the same age (adjusted HR among 10-14 years: 0.62, 95% CI 0.54 to 0.72; among ≥15 years: 0.43, 95% CI 0.36 to 0.50), as were those with detectable VL (>50 copies/mL) compared with those in viral suppression (aHR 0.86, 95% CI 0.77 to 0.97) and those on PIs compared with those on non-nucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitors (aHR after 12 months of roll-out: 0.75, 95% CI 0.65 to 0.86).

Conclusion: Paediatric DTG uptake was incomplete and unequitable in west African settings: DTG use was least likely in children <5 years, females ≥10 years and those with detectable VL. Maintained monitoring and support of treatment practices is required to better ensure universal and equal uptake.

Introduction: Oral pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a priority intervention for scale-up in countries with high HIV prevalence. Policymakers must decide how to optimise PrEP allocation to maximise health benefits within limited budgets. We assessed the health and economic impact of PrEP scale-up among different subgroups and regions in western Kenya.

Methods: We adapted an agent-based network model, EMOD-HIV, to simulate PrEP uptake in six counties of western Kenya across seven subgroups including serodiscordant couples (SDCs), adolescent girls and young women (AGYW), adolescent boys and young men, women with multiple partners and men with multiple partners. We modelled 5 years of PrEP provision assuming 90% PrEP uptake in the prioritised subgroups and evaluated outcomes over 20 years compared with a no PrEP scenario. All results are presented in 2021 USD$.

Results: Population PrEP coverage was highest in the broad AGYW scenario (8.3%, ~2 fold higher than the next highest coverage scenario) and lowest in the SDC scenario (0.37%). Across scenarios, PrEP averted 4.5%-21.3% of infections over the 5-year implementation. PrEP provision to SDCs was associated with the lowest incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER), $245 per disability-adjusted life year (DALY) averted (CI $179 to $435), followed by women and men with multiple partners ($1898 (CI $1002 to $6771) and $2351 (CI $1 831 to $3494) per DALY averted, respectively). Targeted strategies were more efficient than broad provision even in high HIV prevalence counties; PrEP scale-up for AGYW with multiple partners had an ICER per DALY averted of $4745 (CI $2059 to $22 515) compared with $12 351 for broad AGYW (CI $7 050 to $33,955). In general, ICERs were lower in counties with higher HIV prevalence.

Conclusions: PrEP scale-up can avert substantial HIV infections and increasing PrEP demand for subgroups at higher risk can increase efficiency of PrEP programmes. Our results on health and cost impact of PrEP across geographic regions in western Kenya can be used for budgetary planning and priority setting.

Background: Development assistance for health (DAH) plays a vital role in supporting health programmes in low- and middle-income countries. While DAH has historically focused on infectious diseases and maternal and child health, there is a lack of comprehensive analysis of DAH trends, strategic shifts and their impact on health systems and outcomes. This study aims to provide a comprehensive review of DAH from 1990 to 2022, examining its evolution and funding allocation shifts.

Methods: We conducted a mixed-methods review, adhering to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. A systematic literature search was performed across PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and the Cochrane databases, yielding 102 eligible studies. Quantitative data were obtained from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation database, covering DAH data from 1990 to 2022. Qualitative data were analysed through thematic synthesis based on the WHO's six health system building blocks.

Results: The DAH has predominantly focused on HIV/AIDS and maternal and child health. Despite the increasing global burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), the proportion of DAH allocated to NCDs remained low, increasing only from 1% in 1990 to 2% in 2022. Similarly, the overall funding for health system strengthening decreased from 19% in 1990 to 7% in 2022. Major contributors to DAH included the USA, the UK and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. While associations between DAH and improvements in certain health outcomes were observed, establishing causality is challenging due to multiple influencing factors. The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of robust health systems. However, DAH allocation did not show any substantial shift towards health system strengthening during this period. Economic evaluations calculated the median incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of DAH interventions, CONCLUSIONS: This study reviews DAH trends from 1990 to 2022, showing a predominant focus on HIV/AIDS and maternal and child health, with insufficient attention to NCDs and health system strengthening. Despite the increasing burden of NCDs and the impact of COVID-19, DAH priorities have not significantly shifted, highlighting the need for ongoing evaluation and strategic adjustments. To enhance DAH effectiveness, it is crucial to adopt a more balanced approach and also align interventions with needs from recipient countries and implement evidence-based strategies with continuous monitoring and evaluation.

We apply a primary healthcare (PHC) perspective to gauge Pakistan's health systems response to COVID-19, to identify stewardship lessons for integrating the PHC pandemic response. Analysis of Pakistan's response against the Astana PHC framework shows that the imperative for national survival helped mobilise an agile response across a fragmented health security context. The findings show effective multisector governance in responding to the health and social aspects of the pandemic, as well as the rapid roll-out of several public health functions and emergency care. However, we found weak maintenance of essential health services and ad hoc, short-lived efforts for community engagement.Critical enablers that helped steward the response across complex power-sharing arrangements included solidarity across society, collaborative data-driven decision-making, leveraging of siloed domestic resources and private sector coordination. At the same time, a more PHC-centric response was constrained by weak political prioritisation of essential health services, uneven services, weak direction to civil society volunteerism for community engagement and weak regulation of private sector contribution.We conclude that a mindset shift is required from short-term tactical measures to long-term investment in PHC-oriented transformative stewardship. Future preparedness must build attention to essential service package for emergencies, mobilisation of both private and public primary care providers, effective community engagement vision across societal actors and market regulation, within a collaborative governance framework.

Background: Despite strong evidence-based strategies for prevention and management, global efforts to reduce deaths from postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) have failed, and it remains the leading cause of maternal mortality. We conducted a detailed review of all maternal deaths from 33 facilities in Malawi to identify health system weaknesses leading to deaths from PPH.

Methods: Data were collected regarding every maternal death occurring across all district and central hospitals in Malawi. Deaths occurring from August 2020 to December 2022 were reviewed by multidisciplinary facility-based teams who compiled case narratives from clinical notes and then subsequently reviewed by obstetricians to confirm the cause of death according to international criteria. Data were summarised using proportions/frequencies, comparisons made using χ² or Wilcoxon rank sum tests, and logistic regression conducted to calculate ORs with CIs.

Results: PPH was the cause of 20.4% of maternal deaths. Most deaths from PPH occurred within 24 hours of birth (80.0%), among women who had been referred to a higher-level facility (57.0%) and were admitted in stable condition (60.0%). Vacuum births carried an increased risk of death from PPH (OR 4.25 (95% CI 1.15 to 20.13, p=0.039)). Detailed reviews identified that deaths from PPH were more likely to be associated with factors such as 'lack of obstetric lifesaving skills' (26.7% vs 10.1%, p<0.001), 'inadequate monitoring' (51.5% vs 40.7%, p=0.012) and 'communication problems between facilities' (11.5% vs 6.2%, p=0.019) than deaths from other causes.

Conclusions: Our analysis represents the largest published review of maternal deaths from PPH. We demonstrate that key health system weaknesses are contributing to these preventable maternal deaths. Case reviews conducted by multidisciplinary facility-based teams identified common and recurrent avoidable factors associated with deaths from PPH. Global efforts must now be focused on strategies that address these weaknesses, strengthening health systems and empowering healthcare workers to reduce maternal deaths from PPH.

Background: Limited information is available on the value of integrating family planning and nutrition services to improve related outcomes among women of reproductive age and effective approaches to achieve this. This study aimed to ascertain the perspectives and experiences of global and regional stakeholders about integrating family planning and nutrition services, examine facilitators and barriers and identify opportunities and considerations for integration.

Methods: We conducted semistructured interviews with 34 global and regional stakeholders in family planning, nutrition and related domains. Participants were identified through purposive sampling. Interviews were conducted virtually, recorded and transcribed. Data were analysed using thematic analysis.

Results: Stakeholders considered the integration of family planning and nutrition services potentially valuable given the biological links between family planning and nutritional status, and potential practical benefits including increased service coverage, reduced burden on beneficiaries to access services and increased cost-effectiveness of service delivery. Integration was commonly described within the context of comprehensive health service packages, with integration models encompassing health systems strengthening, life course and multisectoral approaches. Facilitators and barriers included systemic and structural, resource-related and contextual factors. The need for more robust evidence to support integration and identify effective and cost-effective integration models was emphasised.

Conclusions: Integrating family planning with nutrition services and both with other health services directed towards women of reproductive age and their children may offer greater value in improving health and related outcomes, as opposed to siloed approaches. Further evidence quantifying benefits and highlighting the effectiveness of such integration strategies is key to informing future programmatic efforts.

Background: The way that healthcare services are organised and delivered (termed 'healthcare delivery arrangements') is a key aspect of a health system. Changing the way health care is delivered, for example, task shifting that delivers the same care at lower cost, may be one way of improving healthcare system sustainability. We synthesised the existing randomised trial evidence to compare the effects of alternative healthcare delivery arrangements versus usual care in Nepal.

Methods: For eligible studies published since 2005, we searched MEDLINE, Embase, CENTRAL, CINAHL, Scopus, the WHO clinical trials registry and NepJOL on 31 October 2024. Two authors independently assessed studies for eligibility, extracted data and evaluated the risk of bias using the Cochrane risk of bias tool and certainty of evidence using Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations. We calculated risk ratios (RRs), mean differences (MDs) and percentage points (PPs) with 95% CIs for the outcomes and performed meta-analysis where appropriate.

Results: Four studies met the inclusion criteria. One evaluated task shifting, two information and communication technology, and one care coordination. No meta-analyses were performed. Low certainty evidence indicates task shifting of medical abortion by doctors to midlevel providers may result in equivalent complete abortion (RR: 2.55, 95% CI: 0.82 to 4.27). Similarly, the use of a mobile phone call reminder may improve on-time medicine collection among patients with HIV compared with usual care (RR: 1.29, 95% CI: 1.12 to 1.48), while the integration of postpartum family planning and postpartum intrauterine contraceptive device (PPIUCD) insertion with maternity services may improve PPIUCD uptake compared with usual care (PP: 0.173, 95% CI: 0.098 to 0.246).

Conclusion: More evaluation is needed for alternative delivery arrangements due to limited low-certainty evidence from current trials. There was insufficient evidence on outcomes such as cost, safety, and patient and provider perspectives.

Prospero registration number: CRD42022327298.

Introduction: Home-based records (HBRs) are widely used for recording health information including child immunisations. We studied levels and inequalities in HBR ownership in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs) using data from national surveys conducted since 2010.

Methods: We used data from national household surveys (Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)) from 82 LMICs. 465 060 children aged 6-35 months were classified into four categories: HBR seen by the interviewer; mother/caregiver never had an HBR; mother/caregiver had an HBR that was lost; and reportedly have an HBR that was not seen by the interviewer. Inequalities according to age, sex, household wealth, maternal education, antenatal care and giving birth in an institutional setting were studied, as were associations between HBR ownership and vaccine coverage. Pooled analyses were carried out using country weights based on child populations.

Results: An HBR was seen for 67.8% (95% CI 67.4% to 68.2%) of the children, 9.2% (95% CI 9.0% to 9.4%) no longer had an HBR, 12.8% (95% CI 12.5% to 13.0%) reportedly had an HBR that was not seen and 10.2% (95% CI 9.9% to 10.5%) had never received one. The lowest percentages of HBRs seen were in Kiribati (22.1%), the Democratic Republic of Congo (24.5%), Central African Republic (24.7%), Chad (27.9%) and Mauritania (35.5%). The proportions of HBRs seen declined with age and were inversely associated with household wealth and maternal schooling. Antenatal care and giving birth in an institutional setting were positively associated with ownership. There were no differences between boys and girls. When an HBR was seen, higher immunisation coverage and lower vaccine dropout rates were observed, but the direction of this association remains unclear.

Interpretation: HBR coverage levels were remarkably low in many LMICs, particularly among children from the poorest families and those whose mothers had low schooling. Contact with antenatal and delivery care was associated with higher HBR coverage. Interventions are urgently needed to ensure that all children are issued HBRs, and to promote proper storage of such cards by families.

Introduction: Despite recommendations from the WHO, antenatal care (ANC) coverage remains low in many low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Community health workers (CHWs) can play an important role in expanding ANC coverage through pregnancy identification, provision of health education, screening for complications, delivery of therapeutic care and referral to higher levels of care. However, despite the success of CHW programmes in various countries, WHO has called for additional research to develop evidence-based models that optimise CHW service delivery and that can be replicated across geographies.

Methods: The ProCCM Trial was a cluster-randomised controlled trial to compare proactive home visits by CHWs (intervention, 69 village clusters) to the provision of CHW care at community fixed sites only (control, 68 village clusters) in the Bankass health district in Central Mali. In this study, we conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis of proactive CHW home visits in improving ANC utilisation, a secondary outcome of the ProCCM trial. We analysed five ANC outcomes: (1) number of ANC contacts, (2) at least one ANC contact, (3) at least four ANC contacts, (4) at least eight ANC contacts and (5) ANC initiated in the first trimester. We assumed two perspectives, a CHW programme's and the Full ANC programme's perspective, which included facility-based as well as community-based ANC. We estimated programme costs, incremental cost-effectiveness ratios (ICERs) and probabilities of the intervention being more cost-effective than the control at different willingness-to-pay (WTP) thresholds.

Results: Proactive home visits were cost-saving from the CHW programme's perspective (ICERs: -$21.39 to -$79.20 per ANC utilisation outcome) and from the Full ANC programme perspective (ICERs: -$1.70 to -$6.30 per ANC utilisation outcome) compared with the fixed-site CHW care. The likelihood of the intervention being more cost-effective than the control was 100% at WTP thresholds $0 per ANC utilisation outcome and between $12.5 and $50.00 per ANC utilisation outcome in the CHW- and Full ANC programme perspectives, respectively.

Conclusion: Our results provide evidence that proactive home visits produce more value per dollar spent as a means of improving the uptake of ANC services compared with fixed-site CHW services.

Trial registration number: NCT02694055.