The Intensified Treatment Monitoring Strategy to Prevent Accumulation of Drug Resistance (ITREMA) Trial

The ITREMA trial is an open-label randomized controlled trial (RCT) in which HIV-1 infected patients initiating first-line ART and already on first-line ART will be enrolled. Enrollment will continue until 600 patients have been randomized. Patients initiating ART will be randomized after six months of ART and patients already on ART will be randomized at 6 months after the last viral load measurement. Patients in both arms will receive study visits every three months for a total follow-up duration of 18 months after randomization to either of two study arms. The control arm will receive standard of care HIV-1 treatment monitoring during first-line ART in accordance with South African National Department of Health (NDoH) guidelines. The intervention arm will receive intensified treatment monitoring during first-line ART according to the treatment monitoring strategy under investigation.