Africa: More information on causes of death needed to fine-tune ART services

Knowing the causes of death as well as mortality rates among patients on antiretroviral therapy in Rwanda may help improve service delivery, Innocent Turate and colleagues reported in a study presented at the HIV Implementers’ Meeting in Namibia earlier this month. Loss of patients to follow-up continues to be a significant problem for treatment programmes in many parts of Africa, but measures to improve patient retention in care require a better understanding of why patients are lost to follow-up, and in particular, the number of deaths and the causes of death among those who start treatment.