Reaching the Undiagnosed Through HIV Self-Testing

REACH Nexus at MAP Centre for Urban Health Solutions, in partnership with the Canadian Foundation for AIDS Research (CANFAR), is inviting you to an affiliated independent event that will occur at the IAS conference in Montreal:

Reaching the Undiagnosed Through HIV Self-Testing – Establishing a Global Community of Practice to Share Best Practices and Innovations in HIV Self-Test Implementation.

Together, we are working to democratize self-testing across Canada, reach undiagnosed people with HIV and connect them to much-needed care. This event will bring together a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including scientists, community members, industry, policy and decision-makers, health care providers and persons with lived experience to explore HIV Self-Test innovations and implementation programs that are happening around the world.

The goal of this inaugural meeting is to set-up a steering committee that will build and support a global community of practice moving forward to consolidate, facilitate and disseminate best practices and lessons learned from HIV self-test program implementation in global settings – settings that ensure low barrier access so that individuals and their partners can make the best decisions about when and where to access testing and supports.

When: Friday, July 29, 2022, 1:00 pm to 4:30 pm EST

Where: The W Hotel, 901 Square Victoria, Montreal, QC, Canada – a 3-min walk from Conference venue

Format: 10-minute presentations by participants interested in sharing their work, followed by a facilitated discussion and roundtable session.

Attendance: In person, for those planning to be in Montreal, or virtual. Lunch will be served from 12:00-1:00 pm for those who can attend in person.

For those who are interested in presenting their work on HIV self-testing, here are some major themes and areas of interest that we would like to include for presentation and discussion:

• Use of digital interventions [e.g., website-based, social media, mobile applications (apps), text messaging (SMS), smart vending machines (digital VMs)] to improve the efficiency and impact of HIV self-testing access

• Innovative strategies and tools to scale-up HIV self-testing to reach all key populations

• Methods and best practices to optimize linkage to HIV care after HIV self-testing

• Effectiveness of HIV self-testing in prevention programs and with PrEP

• Cost effectiveness and willingness to pay for HIV self-testing

Space is limited, so please RSVP by July 5, 2022 indicating your interest in attending in-person or virtually to: Rick Galli at [email protected].

If you would like to present your work at this meeting, please include a title and brief description of your presentation theme.