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The COBATEST network: monitoring and evaluation of HIV community‐based practices in Europe, 2014–2016
Author(s) -
FernàndezLópez L,
ReyesUrueña J,
Agustí C,
Kustec T,
Serdt M,
Klavs I,
Casabona J
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
hiv medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.53
H-Index - 79
eISSN - 1468-1293
pISSN - 1464-2662
DOI - 10.1111/hiv.12592
Subject(s) - medicine , men who have sex with men , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , demography , gerontology , family medicine , syphilis , sociology
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.