Background: Retention of HAART-eligible HIV-infected patients in clinical follow-up systems are now becoming an important issue in sub-Saharan African countries.
Methods: In this retrospective study (April 2008 to November 2011), we assessed the attrition rate variations in a cohort of 509 HAART-eligible patients in Chad.
Results: Decrease in levels of loss to follow-up were observed during the implementation of continuous free access to HAART (72.5 vs 10%; p<0.001) and was independent of gender, age, WHO clinical stage and CD4+ T cell count at inclusion and of the time delay to initiate HAART (p>0.48).
Conclusions: These data suggest that the implementation of free access to HAART without any interruption of supply, from autumn 2009, could be the factor that potentially changed the HIV patient attrition rate in this resource-limited setting.
Keywords: Chad; HAART; HIV; Loss to follow-up; Sub-Saharan Africa.
© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.