The purpose of the project is to generate operational knowledge to better understand the role and impact of Community Based Voluntary Counselling and Testing services (CBVCTs), to explore the use of innovative strategies based on new technologies and to increase early HIV/STI diagnosis and treatment in Europe among the most affected groups.
The project is aimed to generate harmonized monitoring and evaluation data from CBVTCs across Europe using the Indicators and Data Collections Instruments developed by the COBATEST Project (www.cobatest.org) and to explore the acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of innovative strategies, like Point of Care technologies for HIV and STI diagnosis, HIV self-testing and web based outreach and counselling approaches.
The information provided will be crucial to learn about patterns and determinants of test seeking behaviours among MSM, and to identify barriers to access diagnosis and care by migrants. A Toolkit for the implementation of Checkpoints specifically addressed to MSM and web based applications to deliver test results and counselling, will be also developed. These tools could be scaled up in other countries.