ACCESS Myanmar: Assessing the feasibility of an integrated HIV cascade of care surveillance system in Myanmar

ACCESS Myanmar will implement and evaluate an electronic health records data linkage system that effectively monitors the progress of patients through HIV testing and treatment episodes of care across a network of partnering community and government services.

Objective 

Myanmar has the fourth highest number of people living with HIV in south-east Asia: around 227,000 people. Most cases belong to vulnerable populations of people who inject drugs, men who have sex with men and female sex workers. The Myanmar Ministry of Health and Sports has prioritised HIV as a key public health issue, and is orchestrating responses and collaborations. This includes ACCESS Myanmar, established in a surveillance network of testing and treatment sites in Yangon’s southern districts.

Timeline

2018–2023.

Approach

ACCESS Myanmar will extract service-level patient data and link patient service access using anonymous patient codes generated on site using GRHANITE™ software installed at partnering services.

ACCESS Myanmar will enable the anonymous tracking of patients’ progress through the HIV cascade of care, including their repeated access to diagnostic testing and, for those diagnosed, attendance for follow-up care, anti-retroviral treatment (ART), and HIV viral suppression.

Community impact

ACCESS Myanmar will contribute to the national and state-specific HIV response. Site specific reports will be used to identify areas for service improvements, while systems-level data will describe key HIV cascade of care indicators and estimates of HIV incidence in line with national HIV strategic priorities.

By anonymously linking patients between and within services and over time, ACCESS offers an exciting potential as a research and evaluation platform to inform national strategic and disease elimination strategy.