EXPANDing access to Community-based testing for HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs in Slovenia

ended

The objectives of the project are based on consortium experiences of many years’ work with the key populations and with the community-based testing in MSM. There is no dedicated preventive community health service for (non-MSM) sex workers and female sex workers have often inquired about testing at Legebitra’s testing sites for MSM but had to be refused as our funder does not allow us to test non-MSM. For a variety of reasons (limited availability of services, stigma, provider attitudes, lack of awareness of patients’ rights) sex workers, PWID and migrants find it difficult to access testing in healthcare institutions. In 2021, a smaller outbreak of HIV was detected in a cluster of people who inject drugs, which is a group where occurrences of HIV have been rare, but hepatitis C is common. Many PWID are distrustful of healthcare settings, and that is also true for migrants, for whom cultural barriers may often be a reason why testing in official medical settings is not optimal. Therefore, the project aims to address insufficient accessibility and availability of HIV, viral hepatitis and STI testing for the aforementioned groups . Objectives of the project are: - To implement a working community-based testing for HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs for sex workers, migrants and people who inject drugs - To train up to 5 new lay/peer counsellors - To provide community-based testing for the 3 target groups in different locations throughout the country - To test up to 3000 persons for HIV, viral hepatitis and STIs - To have at least 90% of persons with reactive HIV test results linked to care - To inform target groups about the need for testing, safer practices in a way, that they will understand (language, cultural barriers etc). - To distribute 50000 harm reduction materials among the target groups - To assure high quality of community-based testing service