Table 2

Community cadres involved in the PMTCT response

Health worker	Country	Paid/Volunteer	Formal Gov structure/ Informal	Facility/ Community-based	HIV-specific/General	Domains
Health worker	Country	Paid/Volunteer	Formal Gov structure/ Informal	Facility/ Community-based	HIV-specific/General	Community engagement	Linkage to care	Longitudinal Follow-up
ASCs	Cote d’Ivoire	Not standardised	Formal	Community	General	Participate in community engagement activities with work plans developed by responsible implementing partners, attend weekly review meetings organised by midwives/nurses where registers are reviewed and patients who require follow-up through phones and home visits are identified and assigned to ASCs.
ASCs	Cote d’Ivoire	Not standardised	Formal	Community	General	x	x	x
Assistants sociaux (social assistants)	DRC	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Facility	HIV-specific	Provide psychosocial support to patients who test HIV-positive.
Assistants sociaux (social assistants)	DRC	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Facility	HIV-specific	x
Community Counsellors	Cote d’Ivoire	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Facility	HIV-specific	Serve as the link between the ASCs and facility health workers in addition to providing psychosocial support to women who have tested positive; Manage the referral and counter referral process by consolidating information and monitoring clients’ appointment dashboard.
Community Counsellors	Cote d’Ivoire	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Facility	HIV-specific	x	x	x
Expert Clients/Peer educators (living with HIV)	All 4	Volunteer	Informal/NGO-based	Combination	HIV-specific	Responsibilities at facility: client health education sessions; adherence assessment counselling and support; nutritional assessment; maintaining a client appointment system to help facilitate clinic visits and identify missed appointments; developing a search list for clients who miss appointments; following up patients through telephone calls and physical tracking of clients and HIV post-test and pre-ART counselling. At the community level: follow-up clients who miss appointments, continue to provide adherence counselling and support, and conduct home visits for sick patients or those struggling with treatment adherence.
Expert Clients/Peer educators (living with HIV)	All 4	Volunteer	Informal/NGO-based	Combination	HIV-specific	x
Health Surveillance Assistants	Malawi	Paid	Formal	Work out of Village clinics in community but report to facility	General	Health education talks, provision of immunisation services, iCCM, home and market inspection, malaria screening, growth monitoring and nutrition education. HIV-related tasks include: HIV prevention, provision of HCT, opportunistic infection management and cotrimoxazole administration, defaulter tracing and general support to ART clients.
Health Surveillance Assistants	Malawi	Paid	Formal		General	x	x	x
Linkage Facilitator	Uganda	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Facility	General	Receive all the referrals from the community, help navigate clients to the services they require, consolidate all the referral information and ensure information is fed back to the community.
Linkage Facilitator	Uganda	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Facility	General		x	x
Male Champions	Malawi, Uganda	Volunteer	Informal/NGO-based	Community	General	Conduct door to door peer education and provide health education talks to mobilise men to accompany their partners to access MNCH services: promote increased couple HIV counselling and testing, and in the case of discordant relationships, facilitate partner disclosure and general partner support.
Male Champions	Malawi, Uganda	Volunteer	Informal/NGO-based	Community	General	x	x
Mentor mothers (living with HIV)	DRC, Malawi, Uganda	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Combination	HIV-specific	Community level: conduct community health education talks on MNCH and PMTCT topics, conduct household visits of pregnant and lactating women identified and referred by VHTS, conduct referrals and obtain the list of clients missing appointments and HIV-positive mother baby pairs for follow-up. Facility level: group education talks, client triage, HIV pretest education at the ANC clinics, TB and nutrition screening services, individual and couple counselling sessions, active client follow-up through phone calls and home visits (where community mentor mothers do not exist) and provide reminders to patients for their next visits. Mentor mothers also organise psychosocial support groups with the support of health workers and expert clients and participate in integrated outreach activities.
Mentor mothers (living with HIV)	DRC, Malawi, Uganda	Paid	Informal/NGO-based	Combination	HIV-specific	x	x	x
Relais communautaires	DRC	Volunteer	Formal	Community	General	Promote the use of reproductive health services including ANC attendance and family planning, conduct home visits, and carry out community sensitisation activities.
Relais communautaires	DRC	Volunteer	Formal	Community	General	x	x
Village Health Committees	Malawi	Volunteer	Formal	Community	General	Conduct village health inspections and mobilise households to participate in immunisation campaigns, child health days and other outreach activities.
Village Health Committees	Malawi	Volunteer	Formal	Community	General	x	x
VHTs	Uganda	Volunteer	Formal	Community	General	Provide a range of health promotion, referral and linkage services. Some HIV-related responsibilities include sensitising communities on HIV prevention, care and treatment, demand generation for MNCH/PMTCT services and referral for HIV counselling and testing (HCT).
VHTs	Uganda	Volunteer	Formal	Community	General	x	x

ART, antiretroviral treatment; ASCs, Agents de Sante Communautaire; DRC, Democratic Republic of Congo; HCT, HIV counselling and testing; iCCM; integrated community case management of childhood illnesses; MNCH; maternal and child health; NGO, non-governmental organisation; PMTCT, prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV; VHT, village health team.