Study population
death
We included all individuals (i) ascertained HIV-positive by trial fieldworkers and referred at least once to a trial clinic between March 2012 and December 2015 (from January 2016, HIV-positive individuals started being referred to the Department of Health (DoH) clinics in preparation for the trial closure), (ii) who were not in care at the time of referral, neither in the trial clinics nor in the local HIV treatment program (i.e. no CD4 count, viral load measurement and clinic visit recorded in the DoH clinics within the 13 months before referral), (iii) who were still resident and alive in trial area ≥3 months (no migration, no death, no end of data follow-up within three months of re-referral), and (iv) who had not linked to a trial or DoH clinic within three months of their first home-based referral to care. We excluded individuals with inconsistent dates (i.e. date of a first clinic visit or death before the date of first referral).