Trend analysis of the loss and gain of patients on HIV treatment in the context of COVID-19 in South West Shewa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia from 2016 to 2020: a short report

ABSTRACT

Coronavirus disease 2019 poses significant risk to countries. People living with HIV may be at greater risk for COVID-19 complications. Therefore, this short report analyses the trend of the loss and gain of patients receiving ART in the context of COVID-19 in South West Shewa Zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. Descriptive secondary data trend analysis was conducted during August, 2020 to September, 2020 in the study area. The number of patients receiving ART was increased from 1691 to 1865 during July, 2016 to June, 2020. However, decreased from 1884 during January, 2020 to March, 2020 down to 1865 during April, 2020 to June, 2020. The quarterly median proportion of loss was 0.61 (IQR: 0.26–0.86) compared with newly started ART. The proportion of patient loss was higher during April, 2020 to June, 2020. Disruptions to HIV services from the COVID-19 pandemic could lead to a higher loss of patients. Hence, maintaining HIV treatment service is a priority for reducing COVID-19 impact.

KEYWORDS:

• HIV
• Treatment
• COVID-19

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Tulu Bolo General Hospital and St. Luke Catholic General Hospital for allowing us to use all available data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data sharing statement

The data sets used and/or analysed during this study are available from the corresponding author up on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.