Measuring linkage to HIV treatment services following HIV self‐testing in low‐income settings

Globally, HIV testing services (HTS) have been scaled up resulting in 79% of all people with HIV aware of their status in 2018 [1]. However, 8.1 million people remain undiagnosed [1], many of whom are hard to reach through traditional HTS approaches. In 2016, the World Health Organization (WHO) strongly recommended HIV self‐testing (HIVST) as an HTS approach, followed by an update in 2019 [2, 3]. Since 2016, the number of countries with supportive HIVST policies has grown rapidly to 77 with 38 countries implementing HIVST as of July 2019 [1]. HIVST has proved effective in reaching people with undiagnosed HIV and those at high ongoing risk [4-6], however, many countries are yet to implement or scale up HIVST.