HIV Rapid Test Training for Health Professionals
Place: Aksum town
Date: 24/07/2023
Number of Participants: 18
Trainers:
1. Hadish Bekuretsion (Researcher)
2. Lemlem Legesse (Researcher)
3. Roman Hadera (Laboratory Technologist)
July, 2023
Mekelle, Tigray
Introduction
HIV is one of the pandemic diseases, which is distributed all over the world. The pandemic has
affected all regions of the globe although there are variations among regions on the level of burden
of the epidemic. Over 40 years after its discovery, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is still a
major public health threat. HIV ranked the third largest pandemic after the 14th century Black
Death and the 1918 influenza pandemic. HIV continues to spread and currently 38 million people
are living with HIV (PLHIV) globally; 36.2 million Adult and 1.8 are below the age of 4 15. After
coming to our attention in 1981, the pandemic has infected over 70 million people, caused over 39
million deaths, and has had a devastating impact. There were around 1.7 million new infection and
690,000 HIV related deaths in 2019 globally.
HIV testing is the critical first step in identifying and linking PLHIV to HIV care and treatment
services. It is also an opportunity to reinforce HIV prevention services among clients who have
ongoing behavioral risk. Ethiopia has revised the HIV counseling and testing guideline to support
the implementation of targeted testing. The focus of HIV Testing Service is to guide programs
towards identifying and linking new HIV infections by targeting population groups who are at risk
of acquiring HIV in locations and sites with the highest HIV burden. To efficiently identify and
link HIV positive clients to care and treatment services.
Objective: Cascading the new national HIV rapid testing algorithm to health facilities.
Learning methodology: Interactive presentation/lecture and practical session.
Participants: Eighteen (Male:9 and female:9) Health professionals from health facilities.
The way forward
From the participants feedback, we are confident enough they can implement the cascading to their
respecting health facilities.