LAUSR

Background In 2012, 69% of people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Brazil knew their HIV status. In contrast 731,000 thousand people were diagnosed until 2017, corresponding 84% of the current 866,000 PLHIV in the country. This study aims to describe the actions developed to increase HIV diagnosis in Brazil since 2012. Methods HIV rapid test (RT) in primary care settings has been being the key strategy to enhance HIV diagnosis in Brazil. Therefore, it was crucial to increase the number of healthcare professionals capable to perform RT. Considering the need of an alternative training method to on-site, the Ministry of Health (MoH) has been offering the free distance learning course called TELELAB. In addition, the National Program of External Quality Assessment for RT (EQA-RT) was introduced to monitor the quality of the RT performed by those healthcare professionals. The use of oral fluid RT was also implemented to develop outreach strategies to promote HIV testing. Results There was a 270% increase in the number of RT acquired and distributed by the MoH between 2012 and 2018, totalizing 14 million tests in 2018. In 2018, 15,146 professionals were certified online by TELELAB on the HIV diagnosis course, leading to a total of 42,026 professionals since 2012. Eighteen rounds of EQA-RT were conducted, with around 90% approval at the last one. Finally, since 2014, outreach strategies performed 174,000 oral fluid RT by peer-to-peer testing by non-governmental organizations focusing on key-population. Conclusion The synergy of the strategies described was crucial to ensure the reliability and credibility of the RT results and to reach the population not reached previously by the standard testing, resulting in 15% increase of HIV diagnosis in the period of 2012–2017. Since 2018, the MoH started the free of charge distribution of HIV self-testing as a new tool to continuously improve diagnosis strategies. Disclosure No significant relationships.