The Importance of Collecting and Using Valid Data on Reaching Partners through Index Testing for HIV: Results and Recommendations

Recently, sub-Saharan countries have been incorporating and scaling up index testing as part of HIV testing services (HTS), to increase testing among people living with HIV. Tanzania and Zimbabwe aim for approximately 30 percent of all HIV-positive people who received HTS to be identified through index testing.5, 6 To better understand gaps in index testing and, thus, ways to improve programmatic efforts, MEASURE Evaluationfunded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United States Presidents Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)examined sex and geographic differences in index testing and index testing yield in two countries: Tanzania and Zimbabwe. USAID and PEPFAR implementing partners in both countries provided MEASURE Evaluation with facility-based data covering the last two quarters in FY2018. This brief presents results of our analysis of individual-level data for 5,347 index clients in Zimbabwe and facility-level data for 23,331 index clients in Tanzania.