The COBATEST network: monitoring and evaluation of HIV community-based practices in Europe, 2014–2016

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Abstract

Objective: The objective of this paper is to describe the data collected by the CBVCT services from the Community-based testing (COBATEST) network, from 2014 to 2016, in order to provide an insight into community-based voluntary counselling and testing (CBVCT) services’ testing activity in Europe. Methods: A descriptive analysis of HIV testing activity in CBVCT services that are using the COBATEST tools was performed for the period 2014–2016. Results: During the study period, a total of 30 329 HIV tests were performed on 27 934 individuals, of which 1.8% were reactive. Of these reactive tests, 75.8% had a confirmatory test, 92.2% of those were confirmed as positive, and 90.38% of the confirmed positives were linked to care. The total number of tests performed over the study period increased 19.31%. The proportion of confirmatory tests increased from 63.0% to 90.0% and proportion linked to care increased from 84.1% to 93.8%. Most of the tested individuals were men (70.6%), aged between 21 and 35 years (58.5%) and non-foreign born (68.1%). A high proportion of individuals tested were men who have sex with men (MSM; 42.2%). The percentage of reactive screening tests was particularly high among transgender people (8.37%) and among male sex workers (6.38%). Repeat testers had a higher percentage of reactive tests (2.02%) than those tested for first time (1.1%). Conclusions: These results prove the feasibility of collecting standardized data from CBVCT services in different countries across Europe and demonstrate the usefulness of such data.

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Fernàndez-López, L., Reyes-Urueña, J., Agustí, C., Kustec, T., Serdt, M., Klavs, I., & Casabona, J. (2018). The COBATEST network: monitoring and evaluation of HIV community-based practices in Europe, 2014–2016. HIV Medicine, 19, 21–26. https://doi.org/10.1111/hiv.12592

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