Tanzania ’s Tohara Plus Exceeds HIV Service Goals Despite Pandemic

February 08, 2021In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and its halting effects on health services around the world, Tanzania’s northern regions of Mara, Mwanza, Shinyanga, and Simiyu have provided crucial HIV services to over 186,000 adolescent and adult men, exceeding their target success rate by 117% through theTohara Plus project.The IntraHealth-led project—which is funded by the President ' s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the US Centers for Disease Control—has provided HIV services in Tanzania since 2016 to help the country tackle its HIV epidemic sustainably while also working toward the country’s vision of an AIDS-free generation. PEPFAR has been at the forefront ofachieving these HIV goals and has invested over $85 billion in the global HIV/AIDS response since 2003, saving over 18 million lives, preventing millions of HIV infections, and achieving HIV/AIDS epidemic control in more than 50 countries around the world. One of these critical services is voluntary medical male circumcision (or VMMC), a procedure that reduces a man’s risk of acquiring HIV through heterosexual intercourseby about 60%).Tohara Plus provides VMMC services in four northern regions of Tanzania and has been exceeding targets since its inception, but in early 2020, COVID-19 threatened to halt all of the project’s VMMC activities. After temporarily stopping outreach and campaign services in the spring, the Tohara Plus team worked q...

Source: IntraHealth International - February 8, 2021 Category: International Medicine & Public Health Authors: kseaton Tags: Tanzania Tohara Plus HIV & AIDS Community Engagement Source Type: news