KAIS 2007 1 - Kenya National AIDS & STI Control Programme ...

Increasing access to HIV testing will be necessary to help meet the country’s 2010 objective ofachieving 80% testing coverage nationally. “Opt‐out” testing appears to have made an impact inincreasing testing rates among women 1 . Another approach to improving access to HIV testing ishome‐based HIV testing, which may be particularly useful for populations that have limited access toregular testing and counselling services. In addition, the privacy associated with home‐based testingmight increase testing, particularly testing of couples who reside in the same household.Figure 4.6 Percent of adults aged 15-64 years that are willing to be tested for HIV at home,Kenya 2007.Total83.5Nyanza89.3Coast86.4Rift Valley84.6Western83.6Eastern82.5Central80.9Nairobi79.7North Eastern48.10 20 40 60 80 100Weighted (%)Figure 4.6 Rate of willingness to be tested at home was high throughout Kenya, except forNorth Eastern province.Respondents who self‐reported HIV‐infected (approximately 1%) would not be eligible for re‐testingfor HIV and were therefore excluded from this analysis. The analysis was limited to those who hadnever been tested for HIV or those who had been tested and self‐reported uninfected with HIV.A total of 83.5% nationally agreed that they would be willing to be tested for HIV at home, which wassimilar across sex, age, wealth and rural/urban residence. There was little variation in response acrossprovinces except for North Eastern province, where only 48.1% of people stated that they would bewilling to be tested at home. Willingness to test at home was high among those who had ever been1Bolu O, Allread V, Creek T, et al. Approaches for scaling up human immunodeficiency virus testing andcounseling in prevention of mother-to-child human immunodeficiency virus transmission settings in resourcelimitedcountries. Am J Obstet Gynecol 2007; 197:S83-9.KAIS 2007 78