ArticleAIDS (London, England)2026
Evaluating the impact of achieving cascade equality in Eswatini: a modeling study on the prevention impacts of antiretroviral therapy.
Article in AIDS (London, England), 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
- Update of
Authors and funding
13 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveInequalities in the antiretroviral therapy (ART) cascade across subpopulations remain an ongoing challenge in the global HIV response. Eswatini achieved the UNAIDS 95-95-95 ART cascade targets by 2020, with differentiated programs to minimize inequalities across subpopulations, including for female sex workers (FSWs) and their clients. We sought to estimate the impacts of this achievement, through a retrospective impact evaluation of ART scale-up in Eswatini.
designDrawing on population-level and FSW-specific surveys, we developed a compartmental model of heterosexual HIV transmission, and calibrated it to observed HIV prevalence, incidence, and ART cascade scale-up in Eswatini.
methodsWe defined four counterfactual scenarios in which the population overall reached only 80-80-90 by 2020, but where FSW, clients, both, or neither were disproportionately left behind, reaching only 60-40-80. We estimated additional HIV infections by 2020 in counterfactual vs. observed scenarios, and identified epidemic conditions which maximized differences.
resultsCompared with observed cascade scale-up in Eswatini, leaving behind neither FSW nor their clients led to median (95% confidence interval, 95% CI) 8.8 (6.3-10.9) additional infections by 2020 vs. 14.3 (10.8-18.6) if both were left behind, a 63 (31-128) increase. The impact of leaving behind FSW and/or clients was largely determined by their population sizes and HIV incidence ratio among clients vs. men overall.
conclusionInequalities in the ART cascade across subpopulations can undermine the anticipated prevention impacts of cascade scale-up. As Eswatini has shown, addressing inequalities in the ART cascade that intersect with transmission risk can maximize incidence reductions from cascade scale-up.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.