Background:
• Globally, progress has been made over the years to reduce the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
• In Zimbabwe, a ten percent decrease in new infections was recorded between 2016 and 2018, from 42,000 to 38,000 annually (UNAIDS, 2019)
• However, different types of populations remain disproportionately affected, with MSMs being some of the most affected populations.
• HIV prevalence among MSMs in Zimbabwe is as high as 23% in Harare alone compared to 12.7% nationally (MoHCC, 2019).
• One of the major interventions in fighting this epidemic has been finding HIV positives, linking them to treatment and achieving viral load suppression among those on treatment.
•Thus HIV Index case testing (ICT) is increasingly an important approach for finding the remaining HIV positives.
•Zimbabwe is embracing this approach through a large national HIV program funded by USAID.
• For this program, implemented by PSI Zimbabwe, we target key populations including MSMs for HIV testing. The program collates MSM client level data for implementation adaptation as well as reporting purposes. To strengthen index testing, these data are routinely analyzed to actively inform better ICT programming.