Objectives: To assess antiretroviral therapy ((ART) uptake and retention outcomes of the HIV test and treat (Treat All (T&T) strategy in three HIV clinics in Cameroon.
Methods: A retrospective chart review was done for 423 patients who initiated HIV care within a period of three months prior to the implementation of the HIV T&T strategy, and for another 423 patients who initiated HIV care within a three-month period following the HIV T&T strategy implementation. For each group, sociodemographic, ART uptake, and retention data were collected. Chi-square and Student T-tests were used to test for differences in proportions and means between the two groups at p <0.05 and 95% confidence interval.
Results: The mean ages (years) in the pre-T&T and the T&T groups were 39.73 and 39.72, and the proportion of females was 65.85% and 65.08% respectively. ART uptake proportion was higher amongst those enrolled under the T&T strategy (98.08% vs 95.39%, p=0.02). A greater proportion of the patients in the T&T group initiated ART within 2 weeks following HIV diagnosis (55.84% vs 48.17%, p=0.03). However, ART retention in the 24^th month was lower in the T&T group (78.83% vs. 85.79%, p=0.01).
Conclusions: The findings suggest that the T&T strategy is associated with higher ART uptake, earlier ART initiation, and lower ART retention. This underscores a need for strategies to improve ART retention under the HIV T&T guidelines.