Testing
It is widely recognized - by policy makers, health practitioners, and human rights and AIDS advocates alike - that the low uptake of HIV testing and counseling is a major challenge in the response to the epidemic. In November 2006, ICASO's Board of Directors endorsed a policy statement on HIV testing that affirms the need for scale-up, but ensuring it remains voluntary, and includes pre and post-test counseling, informed consent, with confidentiality protections.
ICASO believes that existing models of voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) need to be strengthened, scaled up and complemented by approaches that build on the potential of health services to offer HIV counseling and testing (PITC). Recent guidance from WHO and UNAIDS for countries to scale up testing through PITC have received serious concerns from community sector advocates around the world.
ICASO, as a member of the UNAIDS Human Rights and HIV/AIDS Reference Group participated in the review of the PITC guidelines. While many of the issues were addressed in the final guidelines, some need further discussion and careful monitoring in the implementation and rollout phase, especially to ensure it does not exacerbate the vulnerability of particular groups. Many of these issues are highlighted in the Reference Group statement.
