ACE FORT

AREAS OF OPERATION

Fort Portal City and the nine districts of Bundibugyo, Bunyangabu, Kabarole, Kamwenge, Kasese, Kitagwenda, Kyegegwa, Kyenjojo, and Ntoroko.

OBJECTIVES

To reduce the HIV/AIDS-related illnesses and death among children and adults in the Fort Portal Region, ACE Fort is supporting the achievement of the CDC’s following objectives.

To increase the proportion of PLHIV with known HIV status to 95% by 2023
To increase the proportion of people diagnosed with HIV accessing ART to 95% by 2023
To increase the proportion of people receiving ART virally suppressed to 95%
To achieve 80% coverage of high-impact combination prevention interventions in the scale-up districts by 2023
To provide Healthy, Safe, Stable, Schooled, and case management services to eligible OVC and their families and graduate families out of vulnerability by 2023
To increase the availability and use of quality data to plan, monitor and evaluate the HIV/AIDS epidemic response by 2023, and

To sQtrengthen governance and systems for sustained epidemic control by 2023.

Success Stories

Abstracts

The ACE-Fort project is a five-year CDC/PEPFAR comprehensive HIV/TB project for the Fort Portal region in Midwestern Uganda. The project covers Fort Portal City and the nine districts of Bundibugyo, Bunyangabu, Kabarole, Kamwenge, Kasese, Kitagwenda, Kyegegwa, Kyenjojo, and Ntoroko.

Since 2018, the project has contributed to the Ministry of Health’s efforts to reduce HIV incidence and related morbidity and mortality among children and adults in Uganda. Through a district-led programming (DLP) approach that places supported health facility and district/city technical and political leadership at the center of implementation, districts have scaled up eMTCT, VMMC, condom use, PrEP, GBV prevention and response, and targeted interventions for the key and priority populations. Our technical assistance is peer-driven with the training of mentors who in turn train and monitor the performance of nearby health facilities in providing HIV testing and linkage of clients to life-saving ART or the above prevention package depending on one’s HIV result. We have established a robust community linkage system that facilitates referrals to and from the health facility and supports clients on ART to remain in care and adherent to their medications. The OVC program supports economic empowerment and livelihoods, healthcare access, child protection, and education for HIV-positive children and adolescents, and other household members.