Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT)
Voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) is a service offered by both personnel of a health facility and people from the community, often working with an NGO or FBO. A counselor underwent a special training where he/she got important skills such as communication skills, crisis management and also the technical capacity to perform the HIV test on the spot.
People would like to know if they are infected; the VCT service is answering this need. After a pre-test counseling which provides the counselor with information about the client, his lifestyle and behavior, the HIV test is performed.
In a post-test counseling the test result will be given to the client. Depending on the test result the counselor will convince clients who test negative to stick to their preventive behavior in order to stay negative. Clients who test positive get psychological support, information how to live positively with this result and means of precaution so they do not infect others.
The AIDS Control Component of TGPSH is supporting the Districts in the 4 Regions to implement and improve these services and train more counselors in order to meet the growing need of the population.
The following document is available for download: