How home HIV testing and counselling with follow-up support achieves high testing coverage and linkage to treatment and prevention: a qualitative analysis from Uganda

摘要

IntroductionThe successes of HIV treatment scale-up and the availability of new prevention tools have raised hopes that the epidemic can finally be controlled and ended. Reduction in HIV incidence and control of the epidemic requires high testing rates at population levels, followed by linkage to treatment or prevention. As effective linkage strategies are identified, it becomes important to understand how these strategies work. We use qualitative data from The Linkages Study, a recent community intervention trial of community-based testing with linkage interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, to show how lay counsellor home HIV testing and counselling (home HTC) with follow-up support leads to linkage to clinic-based HIV treatment and medical male circumcision services.