Grant Funding for HIV Prevention & Care in Central America

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Central America (CA) is concentrated, with low prevalence among the adult population but high prevalence among key populations (KPs), including men who have sex with men (MSM), transgender (TG) women (male to female), sex workers (SW), and certain ethnic groups, such as the Garifuna. In alignment with the IOM’s recommendations, as well as the Central America Partnership Framework (PF) and the Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator’s (OGAC) “Sustainability Planning Guidance Document: Advancing Country Ownership in PEPFAR III,” this FOA prioritizes support for concrete efforts that assist ministries of health (MOH) in Central America to lead, manage, coordinate, and implement national responses to their respective concentrated epidemics while sustaining programmatic quality and coverage goals. Funding will support regional activities in 2 geographic clusters: Cluster A (Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) and Cluster B (Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama). Applicants must submit a separate application and budget for each geographic area (Cluster) they intend to implement.Cluster A - Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica:• Regional expansion and enhancement of the Sexually-transmitted Infection Sentinel Surveillance and Control Strategy (VICITS, by its Spanish acronym), an HIV combination prevention intervention that includes improved STI diagnosis and treatment, condom promotion and distribution, HIV counseling and testing (HCT), linkage to care, and a second-generation surveillance information system.

• Regional implementation of the Positive Health, Dignity, and Prevention (PHDP) strategy among People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) that includes the provision of sexual risk reduction counseling, condoms, alcohol reduction counseling, disclosure support, partner and family HCT, adherence support, STI assessment and treatment, and family planning and safer pregnancy counseling.• The potential for widespread emergence and transmission of HIV drug resistance (DR) to ARVs has been a major ongoing concern. Following WHO guidelines, grantee will support monitoring of HIV drug resistance among PLHIV initiating anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and PLHIV failing ART-transmitted and acquired HIV DR (Costa Rica Year 1).Cluster B: Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, and Panama: • Regional expansion and enhancement of the Sexually-transmitted Infection Sentinel Surveillance and Control Strategy (VICITS, by its Spanish acronym), an HIV combination prevention intervention that includes improved STI diagnosis and treatment, condom promotion and distribution, HIV counseling and testing, linkage to care, and a second-generation surveillance information system. • Regional implementation of the Positive Health, Dignity, and Prevention (PHDP) strategy among PLHIV that includes the provision of sexual risk reduction counseling, condoms, alcohol reduction counseling, disclosure support, partner and family HCT, adherence support, STI assessment and treatment, and family planning and safer pregnancy counseling.• The potential for widespread emergence and transmission of HIV drug resistance to ARVs has been a major ongoing concern. Following WHO guidelines, grantee will support monitoring of HIV drug resistance among PLHIV initiating ART and PLHIV failing ART -transmitted and acquired HIV DR (Honduras Year 1).• Technical Assistance (TA) in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) to the M&E Unit of the National AIDS Program to collect and analyze data for priority performance indicators from all 20 health regions in the country (Honduras Year 1-4).• Adapting multilevel intervention (Mpowerment, community-based HCT, and provider initiated testing- PIT), increasing the number of MSM testing for HIV for the first time.