Sierra Leone’s National AIDS Control Program (NACP) is making a major move towards scaling up differentiated service delivery (DSD). Following a May 2023 training of 48 DSD master trainers, the NACP plans to train 700 frontline health care workers in August and September.
The training is part of a schedule of activities the NACP is initiating to help the country on its path to national DSD implementation — a goal the Ministry of Health has had since Sierra Leone joined the CQUIN network in 2019.
In 2023, CQUIN supported a learning visit for a delegation from Sierra Leone to Uganda. The Sierra Leone delegation, which included the HIV Program Manager, the Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Coordinator, the Senior Health Products Manager, the DSD Advisor, and the Executive Director of the Network of HIV Positives in Sierra Leone, learned about Uganda’s experience in implementing community-based and facility-based antiretroviral therapy (ART) models, from Uganda’s policies to the M&E of DSD and viral load utilization.
“The visit provided a clear and rich perspective on DSD implementation in Uganda and gave our team direction on hands-on DSD implementation in Sierra Leone,” said Ginika Egesimba, MBBS, MSc, DSD advisor for the Sierra Leone NACP. “We have reshaped our rollout approach by prioritizing enablers of DSD implementation, which includes recipient of care capacity building and the size of ART packs.”
Other activities Sierra Leone’s NACP is rolling out include assessing community pharmacies for a possible community drug dispensation model and developing a comprehensive national M&E training plan in collaboration with implementing partners.
“Finally, we are planning a country-wide viral load scale-up intervention to enhance DSD rollout,” said Dr. Egesimba.
