ART Services on Wheels

The COVID -19 pandemic has disrupted public transportation resulting in poor access to HIV treatment and follow-up services, increasing the risk of HIV transmission and opportunistic infections. I-TECH India, in collaboration with Mumbai District AIDS Control Society, launched a mobile van on 20 March 2021 to provide antiretroviral therapy (ART) related services to around 2,000 PLHIV residing in the Mumbai suburbs and the adjoining district of Palghar. The mobile ART van will streamline provision of treatment and other services to clients who are missed, lost-to-follow-up, in active care with pending VL and CD4 counts, and those eligible for transitioning to the recently introduced Dolutegravir (DTG) based regimens in the national program. There were 39 PLHIV who attended the mobile ART camp with 11 of those clients receiving VL tests to assess eligibility for transitioning to DTG-based regimens and 21 who were linked back to treatment services.