One Stop Clinic Ifakara

The One Stop Clinic Ifakara (OSC), established in 2014, provides an exemplary medical setting for HIV-affected families, bringing all the services HIV-positive pregnant women and their families need under one roof. Embedded in the CDCI and located at the Clinic for Reproduction and Child Care of the St. Francis Referral Hospital (SFRH), the OSC aims to improve access to care and treatment for HIV-infected pregnant women, their children and partners living in the Kilombero district and serves as a model clinic for other rural areas in Tanzania and sub-Saharan Africa.

Improving Services, Awareness and Clinical Skills

Through the OSC programme, HIV-positive women can access antenatal care, paediatric care, HIV care, immunisation services, cervical cancer screening programmes and care for exposed infants in a single visit, reducing the number of appointments, long waiting times and transport costs. This model has been shown to significantly improve retention in care.

In addition, the OSC has successfully improved the awareness and clinical skills of health workers involved in prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) and pediatric HIV through regular trainings in the district. Besides health workers, collaboration with district authorities and USAID representatives in the Morogoro region is key to success. The One Stop Clinic has developed tools to guide and facilitate the management of HIV-infected pregnant women, mothers and children.

Reducing Mother-to-Child Transmission of HIV

 

Since the One Stop Clinic was established in 2014, the rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission (MTCT) has been reduced to an impressive 2%, reaching the WHO target of eliminating MTCT (<5%). During breastfeeding, virally suppressed women no longer transmit HIV. Lifelong antiretroviral treatment during pregnancy and breastfeeding has been shown not only to reduce transmission but also to improve maternal outcomes.  

HIV in Children and Adolescents

Children and adolescents remain a particularly vulnerable patient population, disproportionally affected and often with poorer treatment outcomes, with lower viral suppression rates and a higher risk of poor treatment outcomes. The One Stop Clinic provides specialised care with integrated counselling and teen groups. We are addressing the specific needs in children who are failing antiretroviral treatment in a multi-site trial (GIVE MOVE trial). Support programmes for HIV care in adolescents are being evaluated in another trial (Sauti ya vijana).