Despite significant global reductions in HIV funding in 2025, Congo-Brazzaville has made an important stride toward more person-centered HIV care. The country’s Ministry of Health, with support from ICAP’s CQUIN network, has developed national guidelines and training materials for differentiated HIV testing and treatment services, marking a pivotal step in strengthening the country’s response to the epidemic.
“HIV remains a major public health challenge for our country,” said Cécile Mapapa, MD, MPH, director of Congo-Brazzaville’s National AIDS and STI Control Program, Programme National de Lutte contre le SIDA et les IST (PNLS). “We count on our partners’ continued commitment to help us strengthen services and improve outcomes for people living with HIV – differentiated service delivery is key to ensuring that.”
The Global Fund primarily supports Congo-Brazzaville’s HIV response. Through the Global Fund and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), ICAP at Columbia University, which leads the CQUIN network, has been providing technical assistance to Congo-Brazzaville’s national HIV program since 2022, assisting the PNLS in its efforts to strengthen its HIV program.
In 2023, even though Congo-Brazzaville was not one of the CQUIN network’s 21 member countries, the CQUIN team began working with Congo-Brazzaville’s PNLS to evaluate HIV testing services and develop a person-centered, differentiated HIV testing services (dHTS) toolkit. This toolkit included a training curriculum and a tool to guide the country’s self-assessment of its testing services. Following this effort, a delegation from Congo attended the CQUIN Differentiated HIV Testing Services meeting in Nairobi in March 2023.
In 2024, ICAP expanded its scope of work in Congo-Brazzaville to support the entire HIV clinical cascade, including direct implementation support to 17 high-volume HIV clinics and 24 satellite facilities that care for HIV-positive pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as their children. In addition, ICAP supported an expansion from differentiated HIV testing to differentiated antiretroviral therapy (DART) by supporting self-evaluations for both dHTS and DART using the CQUIN-developed Capability Maturity Models. These assessments identified several gaps, requiring the development and validation of the DART operational manual and training materials, and remediation plans to guide improvements in HIV testing and treatment services.
These activities culminated in a national workshop held in July, August, and November to technically review, adapt, and finalize the guidelines and training materials.
“The WHO recommends that every country adapt its global HIV guidelines to the national context to ensure that HIV care is consistent, evidence-based, and person-centered across all health facilities,” said Valérie Kouraï, MD, ICAP’s senior clinical advisor for Congo-Brazzaville. “By aligning with WHO recommendations, Congo-Brazzaville’s new differentiated HIV treatment guidelines are setting standards and enabling the Ministry of Health to deliver consistent, high-quality care across the country.”
Even though Congo-Brazzaville is facing a 15 percent reduction in funding from the Global Fund, progress in implementing the guidelines is still a priority. “For the moment, the reduction in funding to Congo-Brazzaville will not affect priorities for the minimum package of services for people living with HIV, which the guideline documents in detail,” said Greet Vandebriel, MD, MPH, ICAP’s regional clinical advisor.
PNLS, with continued support from ICAP and CQUIN, will now finalize the new national differentiated HIV care and treatment guidelines. Once officially approved by the Ministry of Health, the documents will be produced, disseminated, and rolled out across all HIV care and treatment sites in the country in 2026.
These actions will advance efforts to allow every person living with HIV in Congo to benefit from consistent, evidence-based, and person-centered care – a key step toward achieving the country’s goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat by 2030.
The Congo-Brazzaville collaboration also highlights how CQUIN’s impact is extending beyond its 21-country network to strengthen HIV programs across the region through shared learning.
