Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on retention in care of native and migrant people with HIV in the ICONA cohort
Background: COVID-19 pandemic challenged the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets. How the COVID-19 pandemic affected HIV retention in care and whether it has disproportionally affected migrant people with HIV (PWH) remained to be investigated. Methods: PWH in ICONA Cohort in follow-up in each of the study perio...
Published in: | PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases |
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Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
Language: | English |
Published: |
Elsevier
2024
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Subjects: | |
Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2024.102691 https://doaj.org/article/d62b2d8bd9fa4359a1c7305bfe98ba54 |
Summary: | Background: COVID-19 pandemic challenged the UNAIDS 90-90-90 targets. How the COVID-19 pandemic affected HIV retention in care and whether it has disproportionally affected migrant people with HIV (PWH) remained to be investigated. Methods: PWH in ICONA Cohort in follow-up in each of the study periods were included: 01/09/2019-29/02/2020 (pandemic period) and 01/03/2018-31/08/2018 (historical period, as a control). Risk of temporary loss to follow-up (LTFU, defined as no data recorded for a person for one year) was analyzed by logistic regression, with migrant status as the main exposure variable. Difference in difference (DID) analysis was applied to evaluate the effect of COVID-19 pandemic in the different risk of LTFU between natives and migrants. Results: 8864 (17.1% migrants) and 8071 (16.8% migrants) PWH constituted the pandemic and the historical period population, respectively.Proportion of PWH defined as LTFU in the pandemic period was 10.5% in native and 19.6% in migrant PWH.After controlling for age, sex and geographical location of enrolling site, risk of temporary LTFU was higher for migrants than native PWH [adjusted odds ratio 1.85 (95%CI 1.54–2.22)] in pandemic period. In PWH contributing to both periods, LTFU was 9.0% (95% CI 8.3–9.8) in natives vs 17.0% (95% CI 14.7–19.4) in migrants during the pandemic. Instead, LTFU was 1.2% (95%CI 0.9, 1.5) in natives vs 2.2% (95% CI 1.3–3.1) in migrants during the historical period, with a resulting DID of 7.0% (95% CI 4.4–9.6). Conclusions: A greater proportion of LTFU in migrant PWH was observed in both periods, which remained unaltered over time. Interventions to reduce LTFU of migrants are necessary. |
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