Exploring the current and future role of ICTS in HIV/AIDS intervention programs in South Africa

At 10.0% of the population in 2013, South Africa has the highest percentage of people living with the HIV/AIDS virus in the world, with the total number of people living with the HIV/AIDS virus in South Africa estimated at 5.63 million. Although the mortality rate of the epidemic is on a steady decline, the HIV/AIDS epidemic has adverse impacts on the socio-economic development status and human capital of South Africa. The key aim of this article is to gain a thorough understanding of the potential benefits of employing Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in HIV/AIDS intervention programmes. We review the status quo of the implementation of such technologies for selected interventions in the Service Delivery and Care HIV/AIDS value chain and provide suggestions made by ICT specialists on how activities along the HIV value chain can be strengthened through ICTs. Quantitative and qualitative data was gathered to conduct this study. A survey was completed by managers of 20 HIV/AIDS intervention programmes followed up by semi-structured in-depth interviews with these respondents. A further 5 in-depth interviews were conducted with experts in the ICT area for exploring how ICTS can be used to strengthen activities along the HIV/AIDS value chain. Through the research we discovered that the level of ICT implementation in HIV/AIDS programmes are still nascent due to the existence of some infrastructural barriers, inadequate access to funding, inadequate ICT implementation policies, governance and structures and a low level of maturity of the country´s eHealth system.