Outcomes
BLOOD, SECONDARY
The primary outcome was viral suppression at 12 months, defined as the proportion of all participants in care with a VL below 20 copies/mL at 12 months (range 9 to 15 months) after enrolment. This also included participants who transferred out to another health facility and had a documented VL from the new facility. Blood draw for VL measurement for all study participants was conducted at the clinics using full blood, and the analysis was performed at the corresponding laboratories of the study districts using COBAS TaqMan HIV-1 Test, v2.0 (Roche Diagnostics).The secondary endpoints were viral suppression using the by then valid WHO threshold of less than 1,000 copies/mL at 12 months, engagement in care at 6 (range 5 to 8) and 12 months, transfer out to another health facility, loss to follow-up (LTFU) (defined as more than 2 months late for a scheduled visit or medication pick-up and no information found about the participant), all-cause mortality, perfect self-reported adherence to ART in the past month (defined as no missed doses according to self-reporting), physical and mental QoL measured using the Short Form 12 (SF-12) questionnaire, satisfaction with care (based on a setting-validated HIV service satisfaction questionnaire [