Background
HIV viremia, HIV care initiation and retention
HIV VIREMIA, SECONDARY
Central to the achievement of UNAIDS’ Fast Track strategy to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic is support for people living with HIV (PLHIV) to engage in lifelong HIV care and antiretroviral therapy (ART) [Concerns about HIV care initiation and retention among PLHIV were heightened at the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, which had the potential to undermine global successes in HIV epidemic control via disruption of HIV care and access to ART, avoidance of HIV care due to fear of exposure to COVID-19, supply chain disruptions, and the possibility of increasing HIV incidence via secondary transmissions from those with detectable HIV viremia [The COVID-19 pandemic may also have negatively influenced HIV epidemic control through worsened mental health conditions. Within the first few months of the pandemic, the harmful consequences of COVID-19 and its associated control measures (.eg.., lockdowns, social distancing) on mental health in the general population were recognized; these trends were supported in subsequent population-level studies [Thus, to understand whether there were temporal changes in the mental health status of PLHIV presenting for care in Tanzania, we leveraged baseline data from two linked trials evaluating an economic incentive intervention for increasing retention in care [