Africa: Loss to follow-up: health system, not patients, to blame

Continuing high rates of low to follow-up in antiretroviral treatment programmes among people already on treatment and those waiting to start treatment are a symptom of health system failures, not the fault of patients, the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference heard last week. In a session at the International AIDS Conference that focused on retention in care of ART patients, studies from Malawi, Tanzania and Mozambique were presented that dealt with reducing loss to follow up and treatment default.