24-Week Viral Suppression Outcome
viral failure, viremia
VIREMIA
After excluding one standard-of-care participant with no VL at their 24-week exit visit, 27 of 39, 69.2% participants (53.6–81.4) in the intervention arm and 29 of 40 72.5% (57.2–83.9) in the standard-of-care arm achieved the primary outcome of VL <50 copies/mL at 24 weeks (POwER Study Outcomes, n = 80After excluding potentially falsely high VLs from before mid-October 2013, we retrospectively identified 262 participants who were potentially eligible for enrolment between October 13, 2020, and March 11, 2022. Sixty-two were enrolled in POwER, in addition to 18 who were enrolled before Oct 13th and confirmed to have true viremia, not affected by the falsely high viral load problem.Of the 5 not communicated on the same day, the results were communicated on days 1, 2, 2, 5, and 7, respectively, because of sample being drawn too late in the day for the result to be ready during opening hours (n = 1) and the participant not being able to wait for the result (n = 4).Viral load tested using point-of-care assay in error.Comparing proportion with viral suppression <50 copies/mL in each arm.11 of 13 (84.6%) with viral failure in the point-of-care arm, and 12 of 16 (68.8%) in the standard-of-care arm were receiving efavirenz-based first-line ART at the time of failure, all of those receiving efavirenz were switched to second-line ART.Excluding one participant who did not have a VL sample taken at the study exit visit.