Box 1.

Key definitions.

Retention: this was defined as any HIV-related healthcare visit (excluding hospital admissions) at 4 months after the first visit during the study period, with a window of 2 months before and after. This period was selected because the intervention program was designed to provide support for approximately 4 months per individual Adherence/Medication possession ratio (MPR): this was measured between 0 days and 6 months (180 days, the upper limit of the retention window) following each participant’s first visit during the study, calculated as the number of days of ART dispensed divided by the number of days during that period between visits for that individual (Supplement 1.3). Although MPR does not measure whether patients took the treatment (secondary adherence), it provides an estimate of the best possible adherence, primary adherence55. We report adherence as the proportion of people who had an MPR ≥ 80% to reflect newer literature as well as the historically used threshold of ≥ 95%60 Viral load (VL) suppression: because local HIV guidelines state that VL should be conducted 3–4 months after re-initiation of ART, we evaluated the most recent VL at this time point after enrolment, with a window of 2 months before and after28. VL suppression is reported at two thresholds: < 50 copies/mL and < 1000 copies/mL, to increase comparability to other literature as both are widely used