2025/09/05 by Gedefaw Diress ,1 Samuel Dagne ,2 Birhan Alemnew ,1 Seteamlak Adane,1 and Amanuel Addisu1
paper · doi:10.20372/nadre:17305
Background. *e World Health Organization currently encourages enhanced adherence counseling for human immunodeficiency<br> virus (HIV) seropositive people with a high viral load count before a treatment switch to the second-line regimen, yet little is<br> known about viral load suppression after the outcome of enhanced adherence counseling. *erefore, this study aimed to assess<br> viral suppression after enhanced adherence counseling sessions and its predictors among high viral load HIV seropositive people.<br> Methods. Institutional-based retrospective cohort study was conducted among 235 randomly selected HIV seropositive people<br> who were on ART and had a high viral load (>1000 copies/ml) from June 2016 to January 2019. *e proportion of viral load<br> suppression after enhanced adherence counseling was determined. Time to completion of counseling sessions and time to second<br> viral load tests were estimated by the Kaplan–Meier curve. Log binomial regression was used to identify predictors of viral resuppression after enhanced adherence counseling sessions. Result. *e overall viral load suppression after enhanced adherence<br> counseling was 66.4% (60.0–72.4). *e median time to start adherence counseling session after high viral load detected date was 8<br> weeks (IQR 4–8 weeks), and the median time to complete the counseling session was 13 weeks (IQR 8–25 weeks). *e probability<br> of viral load suppression was higher among females (ARR � 1.2, 95% CI: 1.02–1.19) and higher educational status (ARR � 1.7, 95%<br> CI: 1.25–2.16). *e probability of viral load suppression was lower among people who had 36–59 months duration on ART<br> (ARR � 0.35, 95% CI: 0.130–0.9491) and people who had>10,000 baseline viral load count (ARR � 0.44, 95% CI: 0.28–0.71).<br> Conclusion. *is study showed that viral suppression after enhanced adherence counseling was near to the WHO target (70%) but<br> highlights gaps in time to enrolment into counseling session, timely completion of counseling session, and repeat viral load testing<br> after completing the session.<br>