Assisting the Namibia Ministry of Health and Social Services to Achieve Epidemic Control under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

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Namibia has a generalized HIV epidemic, with 10% of the general population living with HIV. Among adults (>25 years of age), women bear a disproportionate burden of the HIV epidemic, with a prevalence of 19.8% compared to 14.9% for men. There is a need to continue the scale up HIV testing services (HTS) with fidelity through index partner testing, including HIV self-testing, and use recency testing to further guide program focus. This NOFO aims to support implementation of tailored, evidence-based strategies to help find, test, and link to treatment populations with low antiretroviral therapy (ART) coverage, namely young women and men, and older men. In addition, this NOFO will support targeted programming on HIV and gender-based violence (GBV) prevention, voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC), and Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). The NOFO will also focus on eliminating mother-to-child transmission. Approaches to implement the above include provision of human resources for health, training and mentoring, technical assistance for direct service delivery, support with equipment and supplies, and monitoring and evaluation. This support will assist Namibia to sustained high levels of retention in care and viral load suppression among people living with HIV (PLHIV). Overall and in the long term, this NOFO supports Namibia to reduce HIV incidence, HIV-related morbidity and mortality toward epidemic control, and improved quality of life of PLHIV.

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