Silberner, Joanne. (June 24, 2019). They Thought This HIV Strategy Couldn’t Work. But It Did. National Public Radio, Inc. https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/06/24/733674936/they-thought-this-hiv-strategy-couldnt-work-but-it-did (Accessed June 26, 2019).

This article focuses on a team’s intervention plan to prevent the spread of HIV in South Africa and Zambia. Their method is called treatment as prevention (or “test and treat”). Researchers from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Imperial College, and various other institutions formed this team, and funded this project called PopART (Population Effects of Antiretroviral Therapy to Reduce HIV Transmission).

Through this project, they found that door to door intervention proved to be the most effective, and they managed to reduce HIV incidence by 30%.

HIV testing began in 14 communities, with about 50,000 people in each neighborhood or town. The door to door intervention plan included training community health workers and having them visit people’s homes to discuss HIV and prevention, distribute condoms, and offer on-the-spot testing.

It was interesting because when people were offered treatment immediately through the “test and treat” intervention, there was only a 7% drop in new HIV infections. In the other group where they utilized the “test and treat” plan, they did not begin treatment until an individual’s white blood cell counts fell below a certain level. This group was the one that had the 30% reduction in HIV incidence.

It is believed that the difference might be due to the upkeep of medication and treatment, but researchers are still trying to understand the difference.

I’m pretty convinced by this intervention’s effectiveness because it makes sense that people may not completely understand the method of treatment or availability of resources until someone comes to their door and explains it to them, especially in countries with less resources or health education. If their local community center is far away, they may not reach out for help or even be aware of the ways in which the community health center can help. It is very possible that people may not be aware of the modes of treatment they can pursue for a disease such as HIV. Therefore, it makes sense to me that a door-to-door treatment and health education plan for intervention would be more effective than a stagnant community center.

I believe that this intervention will need more funding for the training of the community health workers and overall programming. However, the efficacy of this treatment and the gravity of HIV both make this a priority to pursue from a policy and health checkpoint.

From a diffusion of innovation theory, this idea has a relative advantage due to its success rate, it addresses a major world health concern, it is fairly easy to understand, it can be tested in different communities, and it produces tangible results. Hence, I believe that it should catch on because this intervention may be a very valuable one that can change the lives of millions of people.