Implementing Safe and Ethical Index Testing Services: Adapting Provider Referral Contact Tracing Method to Suit Client and Provider Needs in the Western Region of Ghana

The USAID Strengthening the Care Continuum Project, implemented by JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., trained health care providers from 43 facilities in the Western Region of Ghana to support clients to notify and contact their sexual partners and biological children under 19 years of age to test for HIV. Index testing, or tracing the sexual and biological contacts of people with HIV, helps break the chain of HIV transmission and facilitates epidemic control. However, stigma, discrimination, and fear of intimate partner violence inhibit disclosure of HIV status to sexual partners and children. Assuring and maintaining the confidentiality of index clients is critical to enhancing contact elicitation, tracing, and testing, and follow-up. This abstract was shared at the AIDS 2022 conference.