HIV and TB Overview: Jamaica

Overview

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) office in Jamaica is a hub for support to Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. The Caribbean Regional Office (CRO) opened in 2002 in Trinidad and Tobago. It relocated to Barbados in 2008, then moved to Jamaica in 2018.

In Jamaica, CDC provides public health expertise and strategic support to the Government and partners to strengthen the public health system. CDC also helps achieve sustained HIV epidemic control, and increase health security capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to health threats.

In support of the efforts of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, CDC’s activities include:

• Strengthening surveillance.
• Laboratory systems.
• Workforce.
• Public health emergency response capacity in the country.

Jamaica has leveraged capacity developed through CDC’s technical expertise and financial support to respond to emerging disease threats. Some examples include COVID-19 and other vaccine preventable diseases.

HIV and TB data

HIV/AIDS

Tuberculosis (TB)

Key activities and accomplishments

CDC’s HIV program in Jamaica is focused on preventing HIV infection and providing care and treatment services. The services are designed for people living with HIV (PLHIV) within an enabling environment. CDC is a key implementing agency for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). CDC supports Jamaica’s Ministry of Health and Wellness to reach the UNAIDS 95-95-95 targets:

• 95% diagnosed among all PLHIV.
• 95% on antiretroviral therapy (ART) among diagnosed.
• 95% virally suppressed among treated.

HIV prevention, care, and treatment

• Applying targeted and data-driven strategies to improve case finding and linkage to care.
• Tailoring client-centered approaches to retain PLHIV on ART.
• Minimizing interruption in treatment and supporting patient return and recovery activities.
• Implementing differentiated service delivery and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) services.
• Strengthening continuous quality improvement activities.
• Promoting Undetectable equals Untransmittable (U=U) messaging.
• Advocating for legislative and policy changes to decrease structural barriers to testing, care, and treatment, including stigma and discrimination.

Laboratory Strengthening Capacity

• Improving diagnostic capacity and increasing the number of internationally accredited regional labs.
• Supporting continuous quality improvement towards accreditation, including strengthening human resource capacity through technical training.
• Implementing HIV Rapid Test Quality Improvement Initiative, monitoring quality assurance of HIV testing, and providing external quality assurance panels to track HIV and related testing.
• Expanding laboratory information system and strengthening national laboratory services network
• Scaling up and strengthening viral load testing.
• Implementing an HIV drug resistance platform and building COVID-19 genomic sequencing capacity.

Strategic information

• Strengthening health information and disease surveillance systems to ensure quality data for decision-making.
• Enhancing high-quality and timely data availability to monitor and evaluate program interventions.
• Advancing essential data and information systems, facilitating timely data analysis and linking of disparate information systems (surveillance, prevention, treatment, and laboratory).
• Increasing national, regional, and site staff capacity to monitor and evaluate HIV programs and make informed programmatic and policy decisions.
• Supporting standardization of data collection tools and processes through digitizing tools and developing data tracking systems, data visualization tools, and job aids.

Resources

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