Speaking at a media forum on HIV test kits held in Harare on Monday, the Ministry of Health and Child Care National HIV/AIDS’ national co-ordinator, Gertrude Ncube, said the second phase would see the distribution of more than one million test kits in Zimbabwe.
The project, the first phase of which would take two years, was aimed at increasing the number of people in the country who know their HIV status and increase the effective use of self-testing kits.
Ncube said the project would pilot the distribution of 742,922 HIVOFT in the three countries, 359,190 of which will be in Zimbabwe, and also assess distribution models and test demand creation models.
“Phase 1 will answer key questions required by policy and decision-makers before HIV Self Testing scale-up can be considered. It will also assess distribution models and test Demand Creation models and generate multi-country public health evidence to inform interim WHO guidance,” she said.
She said phase two would be to evaluate the optimal HIVST distribution models, scale up HIV Testing through different distribution models and distribute 1,069,810 in Zimbabwe over two years.
