Global vaccine action plan lessons learned I: Recommendations for the next decade

The Global Vaccine Action Plan 2011-2020 (GVAP) was developed to realize the ambitions of the Decade of Vaccines - that all individuals and communities enjoy lives free from vaccine-preventable diseases. It included a comprehensive monitoring and evaluation/accountability framework to assess progress towards global targets with recommendations for corrective actions. While many of the GVAP targets are very unlikely to be met by the end of 2020, substantial progress has nevertheless been made, establishing a strong foundation for a successor global immunization strategy, the Immunization Agenda 2030 (IA2030). The Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization has made a series of recommendations to ensure that the lessons learned from GVAP inform the development and implementation of IA2030.

Introduction and evaluation of a 'pre-ART care' service in Swaziland: an operational research study

OBJECTIVE

To implement and evaluate a formal pre-antiretroviral therapy (ART) care service at a district hospital in Swaziland.

DESIGN

Operational research.

SETTING

District hospital in Southern Africa.

PARTICIPANTS

1171 patients with a previous diagnosis of HIV. A baseline patient group consisted of the first 200 patients using the service. Two follow-up groups were defined: group 1 was all patients recruited from April to June 2009 and group 2 was 200 patients recruited in February 2010.

INTERVENTION

Introduction of pre-ART care-a package of interventions, including counselling; regular review; clinical staging; timely initiation of ART; social and psychological support; and prevention and management of opportunistic infections, such as tuberculosis.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

Proportion of patients assessed for ART eligibility, proportion of eligible patients who were started on ART and proportion receiving defined evidence-based interventions (including prophylactic co-trimoxazole and tuberculosis screening).

RESULTS

Following the implementation of the pre-ART service, the proportion of patients receiving defined interventions increased; the proportion of patient being assessed for ART eligibility significantly increased (baseline: 59%, group 1: 64%, group 2: 76%; p=0.001); the proportion of ART-eligible patients starting treatment increased (baseline: 53%, group 1: 81%, group: 2, 81%; p<0.001) and the median time between patients being declared eligible for ART and initiation of treatment significantly decreased (baseline: 61 days, group 1: 39 days, group 2: 14 days; p<0.001).

CONCLUSIONS

This intervention was part of a shift in the model of care from a fragmented acute care model to a more comprehensive service. The introduction of structured pre-ART was associated with significant improvements in the assessment, management and timeliness of initiation of treatment for patients with HIV.

Integrating intensified case finding of tuberculosis into HIV care: an evaluation from rural Swaziland

Background

Swaziland has the highest HIV prevalence in the world and the highest estimated tuberculosis incidence rate in the world. An estimated 80% of TB patients are also infected with HIV. TB detection through intensified case finding (ICF) has yet to become a routine aspect of integrated tuberculosis and HIV care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate implementation of ICF for TB into routine integrated tuberculosis and HIV care at 16 community clinics and one district hospital in Swaziland.

Methods

Nurses and lay counsellors conducted ICF using a TB screening tool and patient pathway at all HIV service entry points in clinics and the hospital. The patient pathway had three-stages; screening, sputum smear diagnosis and TB treatment initiation. Outcomes and losses to follow up were monitored at each stage. Patient demographics, access, and service feasibility and effectiveness were compared at hospital and clinic sites.

Results

1467 HIV patients at clinics and the hospital were screened over a 3 month period. Large losses to follow up occurred prior to the sputum diagnosis stage; only 47% (n = 172) of TB suspects provided a specimen. 28 cases of smear positive TB were diagnosed and 24 commenced treatment. People screened at clinics were significantly more likely to be female, older, and from rural or geographically remote areas (p < 0.001). There was no significant difference between the hospital and clinics sites in the proportion of all participants screened who were smear positive (x2 = 1.909; p = 0.16). The number needed to screen to detect one sputum positive TB case was 34 at clinics and 63 at the district hospital.

Conclusions

ICF was operationally feasible and became established as a routine aspect of tuberculosis and HIV integrated care. ICF in community clinics was potentially more accessible to an underserved, rural population and was as effective as the hospital service in detecting smear positive TB.

Laboratory-confirmed case of toxigenic Corynebacterium ulcerans

On 15 February 2007, the United Kingdom’s Respiratory and Systemic Infection Laboratory confirmed isolation of a toxigenic (toxin-producing) Corynebacterium ulcerans from a pharyngeal sample taken from a man in his mid-fifties in North Yorkshire, England. The man’s symptoms included a five-week history of pharyngitis, laryngitis, fever and abdominal pain.