In Zimbabwe, Community Groups Help Patients Stay on HIV Treatment

 

In Zimbabwe, groups of HIV-positive patients, called Community Antiretroviral Treatment Groups (CAGs) support each other by taking turns traveling to the distant nearest clinic to pick up each other's medicines, reducing monthly trips to once a year. The groups also assist each other in other ways, providing peer support and monitoring one another's progress. On World AIDS Day, Dec. 1, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is calling for health providers to adapt to the realities of patients' lives and have community-led approachs to treatment.