Mumbai AIDS Control Society to track 849 HIV patients who left treatment
Dr Vijaykumar Karanjkar, deputy director, MDACS, said, “We have now begun a new initiative wherein our counsellor will call up the patient within 48 hours of either missing a follow-up, investigation or picking up medicines. It will help in bringing the number of LTFU further down
Mumbai: After seeing a significant drop in loss to follow-up (LTFU) cases among registered HIV patients, the Mumbai AIDS Control Society (MDACS) have intensified its efforts to track the patients who have left the treatment midway.
Lost to follow-up (LTFU) in HIV patients is defined as a patient who has not received medication for more than 30 days of their last missed drug collection appointment.
While MDACS registered 242 LFUs in 2020-21, according to the data received from the society, only 80 lost to follow-up in 2023-24.
Dr Vijaykumar Karanjkar, deputy director, MDACS, said, “We have now begun a new initiative wherein our counsellor will call up the patient within 48 hours of either missing a follow-up, investigation or picking up medicines. It will help in bringing the number of LTFU further down.”
Dr Karanjakar added that they have also started ‘mission sampark’ to find out a total of 849 LTFU cases in the last five years.
“We started this drive last month to find 849 LTFUs. We have managed to crack 40% of the 849 cases and continue with the drive,” he said, saying MDACS started the ‘lost to follow-up’ trackback activity on a weekly, monthly and bi-monthly basis.
“The care support centres have been informed to rigorously follow up newly-registered people living with HIVs (PLHIV). We have also developed standard operating procedures to handle lost to follow-up trackback cases and trained Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) centres on the same,” said Karanjkar.
MDACS has also initiated a calling activity by ART staff. “If any PLHIV has missed coming to the ART centre, the staff has been asked to promptly call and check on the reasons behind skipping the appointment. We are also sending SMS as reminders for appointments,” said Dr Karanjkar.
MDACS has also started family-centric care at the ART centre to improve early diagnosis, and treatment retention and reduce default in HIV couples. The society has 6,000 families affected by the virus out of which 29% failed to adhere to the treatment. “In some families, the HIV family members are taking treatment in different centres. We therefore thought of getting them treated in one centre for a better outcome and coordination,” said an MDACS official.