Luciana Viana da Costa Ribeiro1, Meritxell Sabidó2, Enrique Galbán3, Jorge Augusto de Oliveira Guerra1, David Mabey4, Rosanna W Peeling4, Adele Schwartz Benzaken5. 1. Fundação de Medicina Tropical Doutor Heitor Vieira Dourado (FMT-HVD), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. 2. Fundação de Medicina Tropical Doutor Heitor Vieira Dourado (FMT-HVD), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil TransLab. Departament of Medical Sciences, Universitat de Girona, Girona, Catalunya, Spain. 3. STI/AIDS Department, Fundação Alfredo da Matta, Manaus, Amazonas State, Brazil Facultad de Medicina Calixto García, La Habana, Cuba. 4. Department of Clinical Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK. 5. Fundação de Medicina Tropical Doutor Heitor Vieira Dourado (FMT-HVD), Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil STI/AIDS Department, Fundação Alfredo da Matta, Manaus, Amazonas State, Brazil.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Home-based, voluntary counselling and testing (HBCT) can help scale up early diagnosis. We aimed to evaluate the acceptance of HBCT for HIV and syphilis, estimate the prevalence among home-tested individuals and assess the performance of point-of-care testing by health staff using dried tube specimens (DTS) in a remote municipality of the Amazon region. METHODS: Community health teams conducted door-to-door outreach in the urban area of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Amazonas. HBCT for HIV and syphilis was offered to all residents aged ≥15 years. To provide an external quality assurance (EQA) of the healthcare workers' (HCW') ability to perform testing, DTS panels of reference samples were reconstituted and tested by the workers. RESULTS: HBCT was offered to 1752 individuals and accepted by 1501 (85.6%). Those tested had a median age 32.0 years, 64.4% were women and 85.1% were indigenous; none were previously tested using a rapid test. The prevalence of HIV was 0.37% in men and 0.0% in women; the prevalence of syphilis was 1.12% in men and 2.69% in women. Eleven HCW tested 44 DTS samples for HIV and 44 for syphilis. EQA testing revealed that workers interpreted 55.8% and 90.7% of HIV and syphilis reference samples correctly. CONCLUSIONS: HBCT was acceptable and successful in reaching untested individuals. However, there were concerns with the quality of test performance, highlighting the need for continual evaluation and retraining of community HCW. As Brazil scales up HIV and syphilis testing, our findings highlight how HBCT can maximise coverage in similar remote areas and improve knowledge about prevalence of these infections. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.
OBJECTIVE: Home-based, voluntary counselling and testing (HBCT) can help scale up early diagnosis. We aimed to evaluate the acceptance of HBCT for HIV and syphilis, estimate the prevalence among home-tested individuals and assess the performance of point-of-care testing by health staff using dried tube specimens (DTS) in a remote municipality of the Amazon region. METHODS: Community health teams conducted door-to-door outreach in the urban area of São Gabriel da Cachoeira, Amazonas. HBCT for HIV and syphilis was offered to all residents aged ≥15 years. To provide an external quality assurance (EQA) of the healthcare workers' (HCW') ability to perform testing, DTS panels of reference samples were reconstituted and tested by the workers. RESULTS: HBCT was offered to 1752 individuals and accepted by 1501 (85.6%). Those tested had a median age 32.0 years, 64.4% were women and 85.1% were indigenous; none were previously tested using a rapid test. The prevalence of HIV was 0.37% in men and 0.0% in women; the prevalence of syphilis was 1.12% in men and 2.69% in women. Eleven HCW tested 44 DTS samples for HIV and 44 for syphilis. EQA testing revealed that workers interpreted 55.8% and 90.7% of HIV and syphilis reference samples correctly. CONCLUSIONS: HBCT was acceptable and successful in reaching untested individuals. However, there were concerns with the quality of test performance, highlighting the need for continual evaluation and retraining of community HCW. As Brazil scales up HIV and syphilis testing, our findings highlight how HBCT can maximise coverage in similar remote areas and improve knowledge about prevalence of these infections. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.
Entities:
Keywords:
COMMUNITY SERVICES; HIV; SCREENING; SYPHILIS
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