‘Know Your Status, Be Sure!’

Funded by: AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF).
 
Location: Vyborg, Tosno, and Vsevolozhsk regions of Leningrad Oblast.
 
Partners: ‘Humanitarian Action’ Charity and the Leningrad Oblast State Clinical Medical Facility ‘‘The Center for the Prevention of and Fight Against AIDS and Infectious Diseases’.
 
Project target: To organize rapid HIV testing within mobile units in small cities of Leningrad Oblast and to popularize the use of rapid HIV testing.
 
Short description of the project:
 
Rapid HIV testing followed by linkage of people with positive test results to supervision in state medical facilities conducted by using the test ‘Determine HIV 1/2’ at mobile units (specially equipped mini-buses). The testing is conducted in compliance with the procedures of pre- and post-testing counseling. The procedures to attract residents in the neighborhood to HIV testing were organized so that people who were at greater risk were tested, including intravenous drug users, sex workers, men who have sex with men, and individuals who use the services of sex workers. We used the chain reaction method to accomplish this.
 
During pre-test counseling a special form was filled out for each individual which assigned them with an individual examination code and on which socio-demographic information, data on risky behaviour, and the results of their rapid HIV test and CD4 cell counts test were noted. People with a positive result from the rapid test were given an opportunity to have a rapid CD4 test done by a portable PIMA machine.
 
Upon detecting an HIV-positive result, the main task of the people working at the mobile unit was to work to motivate the individual whose result it was to visit a medical facility to receive the necessary examinations and treatment.
 
Results:
 
4,345 people were tested from the 1st of January through the 31st of December 2013 in three regions of Leningrad Oblast, and 433 cases of HIV infection were detected, of which 221 were people who were newly identified, or in other words, did not know that they had HIV, and 212 who were aware of the fact they were infected but they did not visit medical facilities for HIV.
 
Among those who tested as HIV-negative (3,912 individuals), 817 had/have experience using injection drugs, 1,074 had/have experience of sexual relationships with people who use injection drugs, 87 have sex work experience, 585 had experience of having sex with someone who provides sexual services for money, and 86 men had experience of homosexual relationships. In this way the location where the testing took place as well as the method of reaching people to get tested are appropriate: the people who came to get tested for HIV were at high risk for infection.
 
Among those who tested HIV-positive, 284 reported as to having a regular sexual partner (spouse), 351 had/have experience using injection drugs, 315 had/have experience of sexual relationships with people who use injection drugs, 38 have sex work experience, 97 had experience of having sex with someone who provides sexual services for money, and 15 men had experience of homosexual relationships.
 
Among those who tested as HIV-infected, 252 individuals DID NOT USE CONDOMS during their most recent sexual contact, and 216 individuals, over the course of the last year, had more than one sexual partner.
 
Project results:
 
Abstract “Gender aspect of interplay between drug use and sexual transmission within the Leningrad Region of the Russian”
 
Poster Exhibition “Community-based rapid HIV testing tailored to needs of people who use drugs intravenously reaches out to individuals with high CD4 cell counts: secondary analysis of data from Vyborg”