11th Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections San Francisco, California - February 8 - 11, 2004

Conf Retroviruses Opportunistic Infect. 2004 Feb 8-11;11th:Abstract No. 3

David Miller
World Hlth Org, Geneva, Switzerland

The scaling up of ARV requires a radical increase of access to testing and counselling (T&C) in resource-poor settings. Current estimates of coverage (some estimates suggest less than 10% of those with HIV know they have it) are extremely worrying, as T&C services are currently unable to provide T&C to most populations who would presently benefit from it. This requires significant re-thinking of the processes for T&C that incorporate the public health imperative for greater access while ensuring that access is both equitable and testing is human-rights based. In particular, the importance of making the offer of an HIV test routine in clinical settings is clear. Additionally, scaling up access to T&C requires massive structural strengthening to ensure that quality of testing processes is maintained, through appropriate training and supervision and other quality-assurance processes, and post-test services are able to provide necessary follow-up. This presentation will provide field-based data and experiences informing the scaling up of T&C on a global scale, address some of the key challenges to these processes, and describe the WHO approach to increasing access to T&C services.

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Copyright © 2004 - Foundation for Retrovirology and Human Health. Reproduction of this abstract (other than one copy for personal reference) must be cleared through the Foundation for Retrovirology and Human Health. Licensed (AIDSLINE) from National Library of Medicine.