HIV/STD Laboratory Support

A laboratory with facilities for reliable and quality controlled testing procedures is essential for many important aspects and interventions of an AIDS control programme.

These includes:

• Ensuring blood safety by screening all blood donors for HIV infection and syphilis
• Monitoring of the HIV epidemic
• Testing for syphilis to ensure secondary prevention for all pregnant women visiting antenatal clinics  for more information see leaflet on STDs
• Counselling and testing volunteers and patients
• Performing operational research

The Programme supports all four Regions through training of laboratory technicians to perform HIV test and syphilis tests. To ensure quality of testing a quality assurance system was developed and introduced