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Public sector

AfA is the largest private sector HIV management programme in South Africa. We are uniquely positioned to partner with those involved in public sector HIV management, with a model enabled for the scale required in the public sector.

SUCCESS AT SCALE
Our previous partnership with a donor funder like the President’s Emergency Plan for Aids Relief (PEPFAR) and an established NGO like Broadreach demonstrates how successful public-private partnerships can be.

In this model, AfA augmented public sector healthcare capacity resulting in:

  • reduced burden on public sector facilities; and
  • improved access to care for patients.

By leveraging off AfA’s extensive doctor network, interfaces with pathology laboratories, national drug distribution capabilities, disease management platform and financial and claims management systems, supply and demand were matched for large mobilised community segments.

WHAT AfA BRINGS TO A PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP

Besides our experience in public-private partnerships, many of the people registered on our programme are public sector patients who work for a company that funds their HIV care and treatment. In sectors like the mining industry, government regulations ensure that even contractors are given access to HIV care and treatment at the company’s expense.

Operating in this environment for many years has given us a deep understanding of the specific challenges facing individuals and communities who would not otherwise have access to private facilities:

  • We understand the role that community leaders play in influencing individuals’ health-seeking behaviour.
  • We understand challenges associated with accessing care and treatment in remote rural areas.
  • We know that solutions which work for the private sector and in urban areas do not necessarily work for public sector and in rural areas.

Some of the capabilities that make AfA an ideal public sector healthcare partner:

  • A web-based disease management system that is easy to access in any healthcare facility setting.
  • An extensive doctor network with the ability to contract and implement capitated models.
  • A sister company, Pharmacy Direct, as a major partner in the National Department of Health’s Central Chronic
  • Medicine Dispensing and Distribution (CCMDD), dispensing 750 000 HIV scripts every month.
  • Interfaces with laboratories around the country which facilitate automated collection of pathology results. A similar interface could be developed with the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS) which services the public sector.
  • Claims processing.
  • Strong relationships with donor funders, departments of health (national and provincial) and NGOs involved in all aspects on the continuum of HIV care.
  • Extensive experience in demand creation, community mobilisation and behaviour change.
  • Online HIV-training offering for healthcare professionals, designed by leading HIV specialists and CPD-accredited.

COLLABORATION

AfA collaborates with the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) and the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) in a data-sharing agreement.

The current focus of the evolving private sector initiative is to ensure the following:

  • inclusiveness;
  • no new infections;
  • no AIDS deaths;
  • no babies born with HIV; and
  • zero tolerance for discrimination.

The agreement allows SANAC to have access to HIV data from all the 78 registered medical schemes/insurance in South Africa. The private sector initiative is using a phased co-option approach to incorporate all other private sector entities responding to the epidemic but not reporting their data to the Department of Health.

Additionally, the key drivers behind the broader private sector engagement focus on meeting the 90-90-90 targets by 2020 and thereafter the 95-95-95 targets by 2030.